RAYS OF LIGHT; 



OR 



LECTURES. ON GREAT SUBJECTS. 



BY 



CHARLES MONROE AURAND, 

PASTOR OF EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHRIST CHURCH, 
TRENTON, N. J. 






PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR. 




LUTHERAN PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 

PHILADELPHIA, PA. 



\ 




, fix fa 



i *ift Library 
o* Congress 

WASHINGTON 



Copyright, 1890, 

BY 

CHARLES M. AURAND. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

LECTURE I. 
The Creation of Man 7 



LECTURE II. 
The Fall 35 

LECTURE III. 
The Promise oe a Deliverer — The Call of Abraham 
—God's Dealings with the Israelites 59 

LECTURE IV. 
The God-man 81 

LECTURE V. 
The God-man's Mediatorial Work 103 

LECTURE VI. 
The Church , 123 

LECTURE VII. 

Divine Revelation 145 

(iii) 



IV TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

LECTURE VIII. 
Sacrament oe Baptism 167 



LECTURE IX. 
The Sacrament oe the Ai/tar 193 

LECTURE X. 
Prayer 229 

LECTURE XI. 
Salvation 251 

LECTURE XII. 

GLORIFICATION 273 



I 



PREFACE. 



The author believes that the existence of this 
volume is justified by two facts : 

First. The laity of the Christian Church need 
information touching the subjects herein discussed. 
Scientists furnish scientific facts, philosophers sup- 
ply philosophic truths, but the whole world looks 
to the ministers of Jesus Christ for knowledge con- 
cerning the deep things of God and man. The 
ministerial office is entrusted with two functions, 
namely, preaching and teaching. The first makes 
its appeal mainly to the conscience and will, and is 
evangelistic, while the latter addresses the intellect, 
and is designed to edify and nurture the evan- 
gelized. 

An extended observation forces the writer to the 
conclusion that the teaching function, in the ma- 
jority of pulpits, does not measure up to the needs, 
nor to the desires, of the pew — that many of God's 
people "perish for lack of knowledge." Christian 
people have a right to look to their spiritual guides 

(v) 



VI PREFACE. 

for instruction upon the " inner meaning " of the 
great themes of Divine Revelation. 

Second. So far as the writer's acquaintance with 
books extends, he does not know of any volume 
which covers the field occupied by this manual, 
suited to the wants of the laity. The standard 
theological tomes are indispensable to the divinity 
student, but remain unappreciated and unread by 
the busy layman. 

The opinion is cherished, therefore, that the 
"rays of light " focused in these u lectures on great 
subjects" will not be entirely unwelcome and un- 
profitable to those to whom they are dedicated. 

The style of direct address is due to the fact that 
these lechires were originally delivered before the 
author's congregation substantially as they stand 
here. 

No high claims of any kind are set up for this 
messenger of light, except that every paragraph 
has been written in prayer for the Holy Spirit's 
guidance and counsel: and now may the divinest 
blessings of the triune God be vouchsafed to all 
who may read what has been written! 

C. M. A. 

Trenton, N. J., October, 1890. 



LECTURE I. 



The Creation of Man. 

Gen. i. 29. 



Gen. i. 29. So God created Man in His own image. 



LECTURE I. 

The study of man is both attractive and im- 
portant. It is second only to the study of God. 
In truth, these two subjects are so coupled together 
that by putting aside one, the other loses all in- 
terest and force. It is the purpose of the author 
to contribute 3 in successive lectures, somewhat to 
the end of a correct understanding of him who 
was created in the image of God. In reading the 
account of creation as found in the first and 
second chapters of Genesis, we are impressed with 
a few things that seem very striking. 

First, touching the manner of man'' s creation. 
With reference to all the other departments of 
God's works the simple language is used: "Let 
there be light, and there was light." "Let there 
be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let 
it divide the waters from the waters. " u Let the 
water under the heaven be gathered together into 
one place, and let the dry land appear, and it was 
so." "Let there be lights in the firmament of the 
heaven to divide the day from the night, and let 
2 (9) 



10 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

them be for signs and for seasons, and for days 
and for years." The same terms are employed all 
the way through, down to the work of the sixth 
day — the creation of man. 

Now, at this point, there is an evident departure 
from the foregoing. It matters not what our in- 
terpretation may be of this departure, the fact it- 
self remains. The language : "Let us make man 
in our image, after our likeness, and let them have 
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the 
fowls of the air, and over the cattle, and over all 
the earth, and over every creeping thing that 
creepeth upon the earth," stands out as prominent 
as the noonday sun, and is surely very impressive. 

Certainly nothing new is put forth in the re- 
mark that this peculiar expression seems to inti- 
mate a plurality in the distinction of the Godhead 
— Trinity in unity. This is the sober interpreta- 
tion by the profoundest minds, and has been ad- 
vanced as a proof-text by trinitarians from the 
very beginning of theological discussion. Such 
interpretation manifestly falls in with the analogy 
of faith concerning this doctrine. 

Another circumstance in relation to mart s cre- 
ation is, that he was last to come from the hand 
of the Almighty. All things else were made, and 



THE CREATION OF MAN. II 

then last and greatest of all comes man. "He 
was the last as well as the finest of the Divine 
works. His residence, and all other things neces- 
sary for his comfort, were prepared for his recep- 
tion. Then, when the earth had been fashioned 
in all its beauty, and Eden enriched with all her 
stores of enjoyment, God made man, the climax 
of creating wisdom, power and love." 

Once more, man stands highest in the scale of 
creation. While on one side he is related to the 
earth, on the other he is linked to heaven. 

The seventh verse of the second chapter of Gen- 
esis reads, ' ' And the Iyord God formed man out of 
the dust of the ground, and breathed into his 
nostrils the breath of life, and man became a liv- 
ing soul." 

In the mechanism and functions of the body, 
scientists tell us there is a close and striking re- 
semblance to that of the bodies of animals. In- 
deed, this fact has of late years been made so 
prominent that there are not a few to-day who 
make bold to assert that the material part of man 
is all there is of him. Almost every school boy is 
more or less acquainted with the theory of evolu- 
tion — for it has poisoned the very atmosphere — 
which hypothesis develops man from the ape, and 



12 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

the ape from something before it, and so on back 
to the Moneron, which is said to be the lowest 
but also the first living thing, from which there- 
fore all animal existence springs, and from which 
all species of animals are developed by laws in- 
herent in nature. If it be asked, "Whence did 
the first germ of life come?" different answers will 
be returned, according to the theological position 
of the person questioned. If he be a theist, the 
answer is, "From God." If he be an .atheist, 
the response will be, "Spontaneous Generation," 
or else the question will be evaded altogether. 
Again, if we interrogate respecting the laws gov- 
erning the development of the different species, 
some answer: "They are the orderly and fixed 
method of God's activity in the natural world;" 
while others, classifying and naming them as 
"natural selection," "survival of the fittest," 
"struggle for existence," "environment" and 
"heredity," declare: "These laws themselves 
have been decreed and developed by the exigency 
of the universe, and that is all there is to be said 
about them." 

It is certainly reasonable that we should con- 
sider the similarity existing between the make-up 
and functions of the body, "made out of the dust 



THE CREATION OF MAN. 1 3 

of the ground," and that of the lower creatures. 
Doing this, however, does not close our eyes to 
some striking dissimilarities — among many others 
such, for example, as these : Man is the only 
creature that walks upright, facing heavenward ; 
he is the only being on earth with physical organs 
of speech ; and he also stands alone in mind func- 
tions, for rational and responsible mental activity. 
In respect to the bodily parts which man and 
beast have in common with each other, no one 
needs to be driven to the fixed conclusion that the 
materialistic theory of evolution is the last word 
that can be spoken in explanation of them. Why 
is not the Duke of Argyle right when he says that 
"it is reasonable to suppose that God created all 
bodies after the same general type?" It would, 
I say it reverently, look almost like child's play — 
and certainly it would seem to indicate creative 
activity without creative plan or order — to form 
one body or species according to one plan, and an- 
other according to a different plan, and still an- 
other further different, and so on endlessly. Our 
notion of the wisdom of God supports the idea 
that all bodies were created after the same general 
type, whether of man or beast, so far as their 
functions are identical, and that only where an 



14 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

additional function or functions are added, as in 
man, are there to be found additional physical 
organs and apparatuses, which in some cases may 
seem to be like a real departure from the common 
plan. 

As it is not within the scope of this address, so 
it is not my object, to say anything, either in de- 
fence or opposition, of the "development theory. " 
That task is in better hands than mine. But as a 
somewhat earnest and close student of biology for 
a period of ten years, tracing out all sides and 
phases of the subject, I come back with the full 
and satisfying conviction that man was created 
by the direct and immediate flat of God. While 
there may have been, and most likely were, nat- 
ural developments in some departments of the 
creation, I, for one, do not claim the glory of be- 
lief in evolution, as that term is used in scientific 
circles. I am also persuaded that the simple faith 
of our forefathers, on this subject, is the best faith 
still for all those whom I am addressing. 

Dropping the matter of man's physical nature, 
and renewing my remark that he is the most ex- 
alted being in the creative scale, it is not without 
truth to say that he is such, most particularly, on 
account of his spiritual nature. More of this pres- 



THE CREATION OF MAN. 1 5 

ently. Suffice it to say here that man was formed 
to bridge the chasm between pure animal and pure 
spirit. He is the middle link between animated 
creatures of the earth and the celestial host of 
heaven — a material, immaterial, earth-born and 
heaven-begotten creature. 

I have now come to a point in the discussion of 
the subject in hand, when it is proper to institute 
further inquiries touching what I regard as the 
real meaning of it. I am not ignorant of the fact 
that it is more interesting than easy to address one's- 
self to this task; and in the presence of the war of 
tongues that has been waged around this theme, it 
is not easy to say the last word, and thus bring 
about cessation of arms. However, the Holy 
Ghost can bring light out of darkness, and har- 
mony out of discord, and we have the assurance 
that if we desire to know the truth, and look to 
Him, He will teach us. Under the inspiration of 
this promise I proceed. 

"So God created man in His own image." 
What can be the meaning of the last word in the 
above sentence? I am safe in saying — for I speak 
from former personal experience — that by far the 
major part of the ''common people" take this 
word as meaning that man, in his external, vis- 



1 6 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

ible person, resembles the person or being of God. 
That is to say, that God took his own form as the 
model after which he fashioned the body of man, 
and thus he is made in God^s image and likeness. 
Now this is not the primary and fundamental 
meaning of this term. At the same time, I am 
compelled to give my firm conviction on this phase 
of the meaning of this word, and right here will I 
likely evoke the criticism of many learned doctors. 

I need hardly say that I have long ago put aside 
all merely traditional belief, and that I have tried 
to study this subject, or phase of subject, from an 
independent, or perhaps I should say, scientific 
and philosophic standpoint. 

The result of such study leads me to affirm that 
for all I or any one else can say to the contrary, 
there may be truth in the home-spun notion of 
every-day people. I know of no better place than 
this to express my personal opinion, not only neg- 
atively, but also positively, that marts outer form 
does partake of the similitude of his Creator 1 s form. 
I number myself among those who hold to the 
doctrine that our physical frame is an exact count- 
erpart of the soul. That the soul, so to speak, is 
the pattern on which the body is framed — part cor- 
responding to part, and the whole external and 



THE CREATION OF MAN. 1 7 

visible in harmony with, the whole internal and in- 
visible. 

To me, the received opinion that we know not 
what the soul of man is, that we are ignorant of 
its shape and form — if it is square, or round, or ob- 
long, or circular, or what not — whether it has eyes 
and ears, nose and mouth, hands and feet — is pos- 
itively repugnant, because it is absolutely unsatis- 
factory. Certainly to my mind it is trifling with a 
most serious subject. Such quibbling is not only 
vague and cloudy, but entirely unworthy of great 
thinkers. 

Now admitting that we cannot scientifically 
demonstrate' the human shape of the soul (neither 
does science even establish the existence of the 
soul), this idea does seem to be the legitimate con- 
clusion of Christian philosophy, and surely it is 
the decision of one of the best of all judges, viz., 
Common Sense. 

This theory has, to say the very least, and the 
opposite theory has not, something definite and 
fixed and satisfying to support it, and it will con- 
sequently hold an increasingly high and prominent 
place in the human mind. 

It is not without profit to state that it is only in 
the light of this truth that many of the physical 
phenomena can be reasonably explained. 



1 8 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

I now come back to my original proposition, 
namely, that perhaps after all there "are more 
things than we dream of in our philosophy" in 
the common folk version of man's being created in 
the image of God. All that I have so far said is 
by no means proof positive of the truthfulness of 
such version, still I do declare that construct- 
ively I come to that conclusion. Putting pheno- 
mena by the side of phenomena, and placing fact 
with fact, and comparing principle with principle, 
of things which we know and admit, and others 
which we take on the authority of the Bible, as a 
good and faithful judge we infer the truth that 
man, even as to form, is created in the i?nage of 
God. 

I speak only for myself when I say, commend me 
to a Father who is deter?nijiate ijiform and definite 
in every organ of his infinite being. Such a Maker 
comes within my mental grasp — so far as it is pos- 
sible for the infinite to be comprehended by the 
finite — and. not only so, but in love and admiration 
will I be able some day to literally fall on His 
neck, to bless and praise Him for my eternal salva- 
tion in His presence, where there is fulness of joy, 
and at His right hand, where there are pleasures 
forevermore. I have to say just a word more be- 



THE CREATION OF MAN. 19 

fore I dismiss this part of my thesis, and that is, 
that the foregoing position is the only one that 
will keep us from landing in pantheism. It ad- 
mits the immanence in nature of God^ s power and 
wisdom; but it commends itself still more by lift- 
ing above nature the determinate, personal Creator. 

Some time ago I remarked that the similarity of 
man's form with that of God, is not the primary 
and fundamental meaning of the word "image" 
and "likeness." I here repeat that assertion. The 
primary, and at the same time the truest and sub- 
limest meaning, lies in the direction of spiritual 
capacities and powers. In one word, man is 
created in the " image of God " because he enjoys 
similar intellectual and emotional and volitional 
powers and functions. 

Physically animal, man possesses also the mental 
parts of the same, but spiritually divine, he posses- 
ses also the faculties (not perfections, in the fullest 
sense of that term) of divinity. So it is written of 
him in the "volume of the book " that he is just a 
little lower than the angels. The explanation of 
this is at hand. Angels are pure spirits, and do 
not in any way participate in the animal nature — 
are, accordingly, in so far higher than man; or, 
which is the same thing put in a different way, 



20 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

man does participate in the animal economy, and is 
therefore, in so far, just a little lower than the 
angels. 

Angels being created by the same God, received 
upon them the stamp of divinity, the same as man. 
In this respect there is no difference between 
these two classes of beings, they having the same 
spiritual capacities, inasmuch as both are modeled 
after their Maker's perfections. At the same time 
it may be fair to conclude that though man had 
continued in his original Edenic purity, he would 
not, while in the flesh, and on that very account, 
enjoy the same highly developed powers as angels. 
The "flesh" being coupled with the "spirit" 
hedges and limits the latter' s enlargement. Fol- 
lowing our analogy, I feel to say that as soon as 
man escapes the flesh— or, what amounts to the 
same thing, — when the flesh itself is glorified, — he 
becomes free to go on and on and still on to end- 
less perfecting, never reaching the height of his 
infinite Creator, but possibly reaching, and perhaps 
in some matters transcending, the status of the 
angelic hosts. 

I have said that at least one version of the term 
"image" is found in the fact of similarity of 
spiritual capacities and powers between the creat- 
ure and the Creator. 



THE CREATION OF MAN. 21 

I deem it proper to inquire at this juncture, 
what are these? I answer, using the nomenclature 
of Kant and others, Reason, Rational and Spir- 
itual Susceptibilities, and Will in liberty. I must 
chiefly content myself with this bare statement, 
for I am admonished of the fact that while the 
field thus opened is supremely tempting to my 
mental trend, I must forego the great pleasure it 
would afford me to go in and " taste and see," in 
order to confine myself to the scope of my "fore- 
ordained" plan to address you in as concise and 
simple a way as possible. Still I cannot leave this 
vital and interesting part of my subject without 
indicating a few thoughts, in fuller elucidation of 
what lies in my mind. 

In the first place, I confess to inability to trace 
the plain line of demarkation running between 
animal mind and the human mind. Perhaps, in- 
deed, there is no " plain line" between the two; 
nevertheless there is a line. In stamping the ani- 
mal mind, I think the Creator wrote : "So far and 
no farther; here must thy proud waves (of think- 
ing, feeling and willing) be stopped."' Touching 
the human mind he wrote: "Roll on ceaselessly 
and endlessly." 

Allow me to classify the mental functions in 
which the two agree: 



22 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

i. Animals have Sense. This is the intellectual 
realm in which there is the operation of the five 
senses : sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. 
Through the respective organs, of which the 
above are the functions, the animal has sensation 
and perception. In other words, through these 
organs there is contact with the outer world, and 
a knowledge of its phenomena is obtained. These 
same functions are present in man. Some of 
these functions may be more highly developed, 
and certainly some not as highly, as in the brute, 
and consequently his sensations and perceptions 
may be keener or less keen, in proportion to the 
capacity of the senses. 

2. The animal and man alike possess the Under- 
standing. By this intellectual power, knowledge 
is gained of the things underlying phenomena, 
viz., substance. If it be true, according to the 
teaching of many profound minds, that by the 
Sense there can be no knowledge of the things 
that cause and occasion "appearances," it is also 
true that by the additional and higher attribute, 
the Understanding, such further knowledge is 
secured. 

This superadded perfection involves a number 
of co-ordinate faculties, such as these : Abstrac- 



THE CREATION OF MAN. 23 

tion, Reflection, Association, Memory, Induction 
and Deduction. 

That the animal has all these faculties, is 
plainly evident when their habits and conduct are 
closely studied. It is true that as these faculties 
inhere in the brute creation, they are usually 
known as instinct. Now instinct is more properly 
classed among the feelings, at least some so class 
it; but while feeling may give the impulse for 
conduct, the beginning and middle and end of in- 
stinct is knowledge — knowledge, too, that is of 
the same nature with that which is gained by 
the faculties of the Understanding, above enum- 
erated. I do not assert that the brute con- 
sciously employs these powers, for this I do not 
believe, as by its endowment it may go straight 
to the result without its processes ; but what I do 
believe and aver is, that the animal's knowledge 
is of a piece with that which is acquired when 
those faculties are consciously used, as in man. 

In order that I may not offend, I desire to say 
that while brute knowledge, in the sphere of the 
Understanding, is certainly greater in some direc- 
tions, it is also certainly much inferior in many 
more directions, to that of man. 

In the matter of memory, induction and deduc- 



24 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

tion, I affirm positively that the Understanding in 
man towers high above that of the brute, being 
reinforced, as it is, by another and higher at- 
tribute, of which I will presently speak — the 
Reason. 

The Sense and the Understanding are the only 
intellectual powers identical in animal and man. 
We now pass on from the Intellect to the Suscep- 
tibility in both. 

Philosophers declare that the emotive capacity 
depends on the intellectual capacity, and as the 
intellect goes out into activity, so will also the 
emotive nature go out — the latter in response to 
and in harmony with the former. This I presume 
is true. 

It follows, therefore, that there must be an 
emotive capacity in both animal and man to cor- 
respond and square with their intellectual nature. 
For every intellectual department or faculty, as 
the Sense and the Understanding in animal, and 
the Sense and the Understanding and the Reason 
in man, there is an emotive department, or capac- 
ity, to agree as a counterpart, so to speak, with 
the intellectual nature. 

This last sentence, in general, is true, but it 
needs some explanation. As we shall see pres- 



THE CREATION OF MAN. 25 

ently, man is not only an intellectual being, but 
in and with that intellect is wrapped up a spiritual 
nature. Now the only point I want to make here 
with this anticipatory statement is this, that the 
Sense and the Understanding, which we have found 
to exist in the brute creation, do not have their 
exact emotive counterparts in the Susceptibility. 

The great American philosopher, Dr. Hickok, 
names three distinct divisions in the capacity for 
feeling, viz., Animal, Rational, and Spiritual. 
Now it seems clear, from what I have already inti- 
mated, that the division called the Spiritual Sus- 
ceptibility fits in with the spiritual element of 
man, and corresponds with and responds to spir- 
itual-intellectual activities. The next lower divis- 
ion, named the Rational Susceptibility, is the 
emotive capacity chiefly set over against the 
activity of the Reason in the intellectual. It, 
therefore, simply remains to be said that the next 
lower and remaining division, the Animal Suscep- 
tibility, is matched and covered by the two intel- 
lectual faculties, the Sense and the Understanding. 
From this we see that the only susceptibility 
common to animal and man, at least in its en- 
tirety, is the Animal Susceptibility. 

Now in this division we find the following par- 
3 



26 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

ticular feelings : the instincts, the appetites, nat- 
ural affection, self-interested feelings, and disinter- 
ested feelings. Some writers give more and some 
less ; some class them according to one divisive 
principle and others according to another. The 
above is the number and order given by Dr. Hick- 
ok, and so far as my personal study of the subject 
extends, I can see no reason for dissenting from 
this classification. 

In concluding this subject, I have to repeat what 
I remarked under the head of the understanding. 
It was this : the brute's knowledge, up to a certain 
point — to the limit of its faculties — is as great, 
generally speaking, as that of man. This as- 
sertion, adapted to this subject, is equally true. 
The feelings of the animal, up to a certain point 
— to the limits of the Animal Susceptibility — are 
just as intense as those of man. 

If the animal has an Intellect and a Susceptibil- 
ity, so also has it a Will. 

All that needs to be said on this subject can be 
spoken in a few words. 

Brute will is nothing more nor less than an ex- 
ecutive act to gratify feelings. Knowledge of an 
object calls forth feelings, either favorable or 
unfavorable to that object ; and those in turn 



THE CREATION OF MAN. 27 

evoke the agency of the mind to appropriate or 
else put away the object, according as the feelings 
are favorable or otherwise. The executive activity 
of the mind, without any real choice or alter- 
native, is Animal Will. Man, having similar in- 
tellectual and emotive capacities, of course also 
necessarily has a like Will. 

To satisfy his constitutional wants and desires, 
his mind will reach out (through the medium of 
his body) toward appropriating the object of grati- 
fication. Now note this fact. The object that 
will best satisfy this want and gratify this desire 
must be selected. Man's whole being, up to this 
point, is so thoroughly constitutional and carnal 
that his executive agency can go out only in one 
direction, and that is, "fulfilling the desires of the 
flesh, with the lusts thereof." 

I have now, in as small a compass as possible, 
endeavored to exhibit the likeness of animal and 
man. This constitutes only the background of 
what follows. What has been said of man is by 
no means the last word. He is only now, like 
the morning sun, rising above the horizon. The 
Spirit breaking through the flesh, his glory now 
begins to shine. "A little lower than the an- 
gels." <l So God created man in his own image." 



28 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

It must be patent to you all that so far we have 
not yet discovered the "likeness of God" in man. 
I remark, however, that while our opinion of him 
may not be very exalted so far, it is this very part 
of his being that fits him for existence and activity 
on the earth. Pure spirits cannot get on among 
earthly and material things. Thanks be to God, 
that His image is superinduced upon man's carnal 
nature. 

Going back, and taking up t^ie Intellect, we at 
once recognize the Divine image in what most 
psychologists call the Reason. Now, what is the 
province and prerogative of the reason? Simply 
this: It peers beneath, above and beyond both 
phenomena and substance, and comprehends con- 
ditions, principles and causes underlying all visible 
things. It is true that, while in the flesh, the 
lower faculties supply much of the material upon 
which the Reason acts; still it is the latter that 
stamps man as spirit. The Se?tse has its knowledge 
through sensation, the Understanding proceeds dis- 
cursively, but the Reason Snows' intuitively. Fol- 
lowing are at least some of Reason's ideas: Time, 
Space, Being and Identity, the True, the Beautiful 
and the Good, and the Absolute, or God. These 
are the fields of knowledge which place us in rela- 



THE CREATION OF MAN. 29 

tion with God. I am, therefore, prepared to re- 
mark that the faculty of Reason in man is the exact 
reproduction of infinite Reason. Surely, however, 
while there is no difference in the character of the 
functions of infinite Reason and finite Reason, there 
is infinite difference in development. God is and 
always will be infinite. Man is and always will be 
finite. Man's knowledge is and always will con- 
tinue to be limited — he will forever be a disciple. 
God is omniscient — and will forever be the Teacher. 
But were it not for maris intellectual " image of 
God" it would never be possible for him to be a 
disciple, nor for God to be the Teacher. To be a 
learner at the Divine feet, implies divine faculties 
in the soul. 

Answering to the Reason in the Intellect, there 
are emotions in the Susceptibility. These are the 
Rational and Spiritual Susceptibilities, to which I 
alluded some time ago. 

The ideas of the Reason naturally and necessarily 
awaken feelings in the heart. In order to illus- 
trate, I call your attention to the following: The 
Reason apprehends a rule of right, and the mo- 
ment that rule is seen, an emotion springs forth in 
appeal that the right prevail. Now this feeling 
may be termed conscience, which always addresses 



30 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

its owner: u Do thy duty." Again, in the things 
that are made, Reason sees the " eternal power 
and Godhead" of the Maker. Such recognition 
of Jehovah occasions certain peculiar emotions. 
There will be feelings of helplessness and de- 
pendence, awe and reverence, faith and love, 
worship and praise. Remember, I speak of man 
as he was originally created, and not as we now 
find him. 

It may be meet to say here that the foregoing 
emotions are merely given as illustrations, and 
while complete as far as they go, they are by no 
means all that may be found in the Rational Sus- 
ceptibility. Some writers mention scientific and 
aesthetic emotions as belonging here. 

In the matter of the Spiritual Susceptibility, a 
few words will suffice. Man, as we have so far 
seen him, together with Will in liberty, of which 
some remarks presently, is more than a thing — he is 
a person. Personality involves character, and 
character implies a radical spiritual disposition. 
The Spiritual Susceptibility answers to this dispo- 
sition, and all the individual emotions therein are 
governed by this disposition. If a man's disposi- 
tion is evil, all the feelings in this susceptibility 
are evil; if good, then the feelings are good. 



THE CREATION OF MAN. 3 1 

Hence, while the Susceptibility itself is permanent, 
the emotions are contingent — for as the character 
is, so are the emotions, good or evil. If now, in 
view of what I have said, the question be asked, 
u Do you think that all these feelings which you 
have mentioned as belonging originally to man, 
do also pervade the heart of God?" I answer, 
No, not all. Some do, such as love, and perhaps 
others of which we have no knowledge; but others 
do not, such as awe, reverence, and so on. The 
reason for this is patent. God and man do not 
sustain the same relations to each other. One is 
Creator, the other creature — one infinite, the other 
finite — and this makes a world of difference. 

Father and son have identical mental endow- 
ments. The relations which they hold to each 
other as father and son, causes a wide divergence of 
emotions. While the father has probably more 
love for the son, the son surely has more reverence 
for the father, etc. , etc. 

Now apply this reasoning to the subject in hand, 
and it will be found that my proposition is estab- 
lished, namely, that the disparity of emotion in the 
heart of God and man, does not indicate disparity 
of constitutions, but only of relations. "So God 
created man in His own image." 



32 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

One thing more. God has, and so has man, 
Will in Liberty. 

The true conception of Will in Liberty involves 
three things. First, a real alternative in reference 
to which the spirit is to act. Secondly, the power 
of electing one of these alternatives rather than 
another. Thirdly, the power of originating agency 
to secure that which has been elected. Thus we 
have alternative, choice and execution. The pro- 
cess is something like this: — The " flesh," (St. 
Paul) usually in its own interest, proposes an end 
to the Will. "The spirit" (St. Paul) also proposes 
an end, in its own interest and God's glory, to the 
Will. Now it is competent for the Will to choose 
the one and leave the other. This done, the Will 
now goes out in executive act toward the end 
chosen. In all this man stands infinitely above 
the brute, and so far as capacity is concerned, is on 
a level with God. 

It is valid to say that God does not need occa- 
sions for such exercise of Will in Liberty, in order 
to perfect His nature, and man does ; but this fact 
does not argue against God's having such capa- 
city. "So God created man in His own image." 

In the foregoing remarks I have outlined to you 
what I consider the deepest meaning of the Scrip- 
ture just quoted. 



THE CREATION OF MAN. 33 

If I have succeeded in making myself under- 
stood, I feel reasonably certain that at least many 
of you have such an insight into an interesting 
and important subject as you have never enjoyed 
before. 

I now beg leave to briefly indicate two other 
aspects, in which it may be said that man is made 
in his Maker's likeness. 

The truth is, what I have already said fully im- 
plies what follows; at the same time I feel to make 
particular mention of them for the sake of em- 
phasis. 

Man has in him Gods "image" in respect to 
holiness. 

Is Jehovah exempt from all sin and evil? So 
was man. Does God love the true, the beautiful 
and the good? So did man. In fine, as in the 
Creator, so was the creature. 

Indeed, the truthfulness of this statement is 
apparent in the light of what has been said in re- 
ference to the soul-structure of man. He being 
endowed with a rational nature, after the image of 
God — which nature occupying the throne of his 
being, ruling and guiding his lower nature, hold- 
ing it in subjection and abeyance — how could it be 
otherwise than that he should be holy, pure and 
God-like? 



34 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

It follows naturally from his moral and spiritual 
status, just indicated, that man was after the 
"image of God" in respect to happiness and love. 
It is impossible for the mind to conceive a perfect 
being without these emotions. They are really 
elements that necessarily belong to and help to 
round out and complete perfection. God must, 
therefore, possess them, and so also man, by virtue 
of his very nature. 

In view of what has been advanced in the fore- 
going observations, we may well see why man is 
the "lord of creation" *and a real son of God. 
" Let us follow on to know " more of his history 
and destiny. 



LECTURE II. 



The Fall. 

Gen. iii. 6. 



Gen. iii. 6. She took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and 
gave also to her husband with her and he did eat. 



LECTURE II. 

IT is simply and alone in the interest of a sad 
truth that I pen some thoughts on the subject of 
The Fall. 

That such a noble and exalted creature as man 
should fall away from his all-wise and infinitely 
loving Maker, is a fact so dark and direful that no 
one can speak of it with a light and and cheeeful 
heart; and were it not for the ultimate result, 
even salvation, to which this discussion may lead, 
I would fain remain silent. 

That man was created in the image of God, and 
that that image is now in part lost, are two truths 
that stand as fast as Gibraltar. 

The questious, Why? How? To what extent? 
etc., naturally come up for answer, and in Order to 
give an answer, I will endeavor to speak under 
the three heads : Goa? s law, mart s transgression, the 
result. 

I. God? s Law. The question is sometimes put, 
"If man was all that you ascribe to him, why was 
a law for .his government necessary? I answer, 

(37) 



38 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

there are two reasons. First, God being the crea- 
tor, was also compelled to be ruler. Secondly, It 
does not matter how pure a being may be, there 
needs to be a law for his guidance and government. 
Barbarians have few or no laws, but highly civil- 
ized and socially organized nations need many 
laws. 

In heaven, where all are pure and unspotted, 
God's will is law — cheerfully done, but doubtless 
that will goes out in different directions, expressed 
in various forms; and so in this view, there are 
many laws for the conduct of the angelic hosts. 
In the preceding lecture I observed that man is 
finite, but God infinite; man is disciple, and God, 
teacher. I insisted that "the image of God" signi- 
fies likeness of rational and spiritual functions, but 
by no means equality in development. 

Now in the light of this statement, it follows in- 
evitably that to the end of man's development and 
training, involving, of course, moral trial and pro- 
bation, it behooves God to promulgate and teach 
His will — law. Surely it matters riot whether 
that law is arbitrary, or adapted to man's physical 
or moral nature; all that can be required is that it 
be the ruler's voice. This being established, the 
subject has no option — he ought to obey. 



THE FALL. 39 

In the matter of trie law given to Adam and Eve 
in Eden, there are many who hold that the forbid- 
den fruit was actually poisonous to the physical 
body, and that, in so far at least, it was not an 
arbitrary command, but the opposite. 

Others have made an effort to teach that this 
whole account is nothing but an abstract truth put 
into a concrete form; an ideal picture set in a mate- 
rial frame; and that, therefore, there was no Eden, 
nor tree, nor fruit, nor serpent, etc. For myself I 
believe that such interpretation of holy writ, while 
it may go under the name of criticism, is destruc- 
tive and paralyzing, and that it can not be fraught 
with good results. I prefer to hold on to the literal 
meaning of Moses' "form of sound words." If, 
however, any of you can take any comfort from this 
emasculating style of interpretation, you are wel- 
come to it; and I want to say, moreover, that it does 
not affect the proposition that God's will, promul- 
gated in any form or manner, is law, and that such 
law was essential to the spiritual training of the 
first human pair. 

In this connection it may not be without avail to 
say something further relative to the law in Eden. 
In the first place, it was simple and plain. ' ' The 
Lord God commanded man, saying, Of every tree 



40 RAYS OF UGHT. 

of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the 
tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou mayest 
not eat, for in the day thou eatest thereof thou 
shalt surely die." 

Secondly, it was easy and practicable. There 
was no possible need for this fruit. Their Maker 
had kindly given all the rest. All their wants were 
met — all their needs gratified. God had reserved 
only this one fruit, by which, you see, He expressed 
His will — a law. They had, as you remember from 
all I established in the first address, absolitte ability 
to obey. Here was a test, to be sure; the animal 
nature proposing an object to the will, but the spirit 
also, in the form of its own spiritual worthiness and 
the honor of Jehovah. Here is a true alternative. 
The Will in Liberty is regnant, and has the power 
to choose and enact the latter and reject the former. 

Thirdly, it expressed, in the most positive man- 
ner, the Lawgiver 1 } s love for the good and hatred of 
evil. This deserves more than a passing notice. 
This very matter has been with many the stone of 
stumbling and the rock of offence. 

It is asked with a great degree of vehemence, and 
with an air of triumph, if God is all- wise, and 
knew that Adam and Eve would surely transgress 
his law, why did He attach to it a heavy and fearful 



THE FALL. 41 

penalty, namely, death? The answer is present. 
This is the only possible way there is for showing 
His own position respecting holiness on the one 
hand, and sin on the other. We see at a glance that 
had God been unconcerned as to whether His crea- 
tures remained pure or committed sin, the penalty 
of the given law would have been mild and small ; 
but being greatly solicitous, as He was, the sanction 
must necessarily be heavy and severe. In fine, the 
penalty must be an exact expression of the Law- 
giver's character and feeling in regard to holiness, 
and its opposite. For be it remembered that the 
law was not given to be broken, but to be kept. 
Now this fact involves the additional fact that this 
law, with this heavy penalty, wrapped up within its 
terms an equally great and precious promise, 
namely, life. As there was death by eating, so 
also there was life by abstaining — and touching 
which they could be absolutely certain, inasmuch 
as they already possessed the latter. 

In this view of it we clearly see that the law 
given to Adam and Eve was precisely suited to the 
exigency of all the circumstances; and in this, as 
in all other things, we observe the love and good- 
ness of God in his dealings with his subjects. 

I now pass on to man's transgression. 
4 



42 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

II. The Transgression. — The transgression of the 
holy and righteous law of God by our first parents 
was naturally preceded by temptation. We examine 
the account at Gen. iii. 1-5, and find that this fact 
is plainly set forth in this language: "Now the ser- 
pent was more subtile than any beast of the field 
which the L,ord God had made. And he said unto 
the woman, Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of 
every tree of the garden? The woman said, We 
may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, 
but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst 
of the garden God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, 
neither shall ye touch it lest ye die. The serpent 
said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. For 
God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof then 
your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, 
knowing good and evil." 

Now this narrative attracts our attention to the 
source and manner of the temptation. 

Touching the visible agent — the serpent — it is 
proper to say there has always prevailed a differ- 
ence of opinion among the wise. Some maintain 
that Satan presented himself in the form of a ser- 
pent, and that consequently what was seen and 
heard was not a literal serpent, but the literal devil. 
Again, there are many who hold that while it was 



THE FALL. 43 

a real serpent which was visible, Satan, invisible, 
delivered the speech, and of course enacted the be- 
guiling work. 

This, I submit, is one of the many things con- 
cerning which "we see through a glass darkly," 
but which we will likely "know even as we are 
known " in the "sweet bye and bye." 

Nor does this lack of knowledge seriously affect 
us. Of one matter we are certain, and that is, that 
the "old serpent, the devil" — in any way or man- 
ner, but surely in some way or manner — accom- 
plished his designs, and brought about the most 
direful catastrophe the earth has ever witnessed. 
I take it to be interesting to many of you to give 
the opinion of a few learned theologians as to the 
modus operandi of the temptation which led to the 
fall. Dr. Knapp states his opinion thus: "Eve 
sees the serpent on the forbidden tree, and probably 
eating of the fruit, and yet no harm follows. She 
sees, on the contrary, that the serpent is very active 
and knowing. She reasons thus: 'The tree can- 
not be injurious; the command cannot be meant in 
earnest.' The serpent seems to say to her, "Con- 
sider how vigorous and wise I am — you will not 
die, you will become wise. ' And Eve now thinks 
as God is the only being wiser than herself, she 



44 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

would become wise like God. Thus at length she 
ate of the tree." 

Drs. Storrand Flatt's explanation: "The natural 
serpent ate of the forbidden fruit, and Bve observes 
it. The devil takes advantage of this circum- 
stance, presents himself, and, though invisible to 
Eve, carries on a conversation with her for the pur- 
pose of inducing her to transgress the command of 
God. Eve, not seeing the devil, supposed it was 
the serpent that spoke to her. Having known the 
serpent before, and never having discovered in it* 
the gift of rational conversation, Eve naturally con- 
cluded that the eating of the forbidden fruit had 
conferred the gift upon her." 

Another circumstance of the temptation is this, 
that Satan appeared first to the woman. 

This fact is usually accounted for on the assump- 
tion that Eve, and all women ever since, was the 
weaker vessel morally, and that the ingenuity of 
the devil led him, as a matter of course, to inveigle 
her first, and thus gradually work his way up to 
the stronger — good and superior Adam. I do not 
agree to this. I do not agree, because I believe 
facts point to the reverse of the above. How any 
one can postulate that woman is the weaker, mor- 
ally and spiritually, I for one can not conceive, in- 



THE FAIX. 45 

asmuch as all history and, I think, psychology, 
4 ' sound her praise abroad. ' ' 

I believe in the total depravity of both sexes 
since the fall, but this does not blind me to the un- 
disputed fact that woman is clearly more suscepti- 
ble to spiritual influences and truths than man. As 
a witness to this statement, I cite that seventy-five 
per cent, of the disciples of Christ to-day are 
women. But the voice of history is not the only 
voice in her favor. I am absolutely certain that a 
psychological investigation, if it could be con- 
ducted, would establish the truth of a greater spir- 
itual and a lesser animal element in the feminine, 
than in the opposite sex. If this be true now, I 
am sure it was pre-eminently true before "sin and 
death entered into the world." 

My judgment, therefore, is, in view of what I 
have observed above, that Satan attacked Eve first 
because he was sagacious enough to know that if 
he succeeded in his wiles with her, being the 
stronger, he would have easy and short work with 
Adam. Eve was the key to the situation. Let 
Petersburg fall, and Richmond is a foregone coitclu- 
sion. Let Eve disobey, and Adam is certain to 
yield. Now let Moses speak : ( ' She took the fruit 
thereof and did eat, and gave also to her husband, 



46 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

with her, and he did eat." In this we find not the 
slightest hesitation or resistance on the part of 
Adam. I have spoken somewhat at length on the 
foregoing, for the sole reason of vindicating woman 
from the aspersion so often heaped upon her by the 
other sex— from whom we have a right to look for 
better things. 

Relative to the time when the fall took place it 
is impossible to venture more than a surmise. 
Many, however, are of the opinion that it took 
place on the first day of their occupancy of Para- 
dise. This may be true or it may not be true — who 
knows? But one thing is certain, which I will 
make more evident later on, namely, that it did oc- 
cur before the conception of their first-born child. 

Before advancing to the third part of this discus- 
sion, I desire to share your indulgence a brief period 
on the moral evils involved in the transgression. 
This I do not so much in the interest of mere intel- 
lectual edification as in that of moral improvement. 

First, there was a sad display of ingratitude. 
The spirit of thankfulness should always have a 
large place in every living bosom. It should heave 
the breast and dominate both tongue and life. 
This is peculiarly true of the occupants of glorious 
Eden. In their own personality, as well as in every 



THE FALL. 47 

environment, there existed not only a reflection, 
but a true counterpart of God and heaven. They 
surely had no right to wish for anything more. 
The spirit yielding to the flesh already at the very 
beginning of the temptation, at least to some ex- 
tent, quieted the voice of thanksgiving, and gave 
room to a spirit of discontent. How sad to contem- 
plate, but yet how true! Moreover, this same devil 
too often rules in our moral empire within, and dis- 
allows one of the leading principles and activities 
of the soul — gratitude, grateful praise! 

Secondly. Here is pride. That Adam and Kve 
should have a high and noble opinion of themselves 
is not incompatible with moral purity. To remem- 
ber appreciatingly their origin and present standing 
was a holy duty and an exalted privilege. In this 
view of it we observe the consistency of a " lofty 
spirit." When, however, this legitimate notion 
became contaminated with the desires of the 
u flesh," it remained no longer pure and proper, 
but became selfish and sinful, and the expression 
and outgoing thereof led to iniquity and rebellion, 
inasmuch as it lifted the creature above the Creator. 
Gen. iii. 6. 

Thirdly. We notice here a display of great cre- 
dulity, and yet great unbelief. Faith in the word 



48 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

of the Maker, and distrust of the fabrication of 
Satan, is the natural order. This order was re- 
versed. 

Now I wish to say right here that it was decidedly 
easier to follow the right order, for that was the 
God-ordained one. The current of Adam and Eve's 
life ran that way. Trust in God and disbelief in 
Satan was in accordance with the constitution of 
their soul. One was natural, the other unnatural. 
Notwithstanding, they held the lever in their own 
hand. In the very nature of the case it remained 
for them to say whether they will go forward or 
backward. They decided. The reverse lever of 
their life was pulled. They ran backward and 
wrecked! 

Alas and alas! that millions on millions of intel- 
ligent people should commit the same inexcusable 
folly in this late day, when the appeal of God and 
man is loud and strong to choose a "more excellent 
way. ' ' 

With feelings of sadness we now approach the 
result of the transgression. 

III. The Result. — For the purpose of preparing 
the way for what I consider as the direct and posi- 
tive consequence of the transgression, I give those 
which are incidental first. In this we are guided 
by the narration in Gen. iii. 



THE FALL. 49 

At the seventh verse we read : ( ( And the eyes of 
them both were opened, and they knew that they 
were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and 
made themselves aprons." This intimates some- 
thing of the unspeakable fear and shame that over- 
whelmed Adam and Eve. 

Before this nothing but joy and peace thrilled 
their souls. Holy innocence, as that of angels, 
sheathed their persons. Now they are bowed down 
with shame, and their grief is more than they can 
bear. Satan's words are fulfilled: "That in the 
day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, 
and ye shall be as gods (not God, but gods, that is, 
devils), knowing good and evil." They obtained 
" knowledge," they became u wise," but it was the 
"knowledge" and "wisdom" of Diabolus; and the 
tribute which they paid for their learning was noth- 
ing less than their happy, pure and peaceful inno- 
cence, yea, even their own life, as indeed also the 
life of all humanity. Read verse 8. 

At the ninth to the thirteenth verse we find a 
record of the manner in which God took the offend- 
ers to task, and their heart-broken confession. It is 
not at all possible for us even to imagine the pang 
and terror which must have seized, tiger-like, upon 
their souls, and especially so as they listened to 



50 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

the sentence of punishment their Ruler pro- 
nounced upon them. Read the 16-19 verses. 

As I said before, these results are only inci- 
dental and concomitant. They are the things 
that come to the surface of their life. If this were 
the major portion of their calamity, it were sad 
enough, it is true; but being, as it is, only the 
minor portion, what can be thought and said of 
the other? 

We remember that the sanction of the law was 
"death," in transgression. Now "death" is a 
term that may apply variously. It is a relative 
term, for a thing may not be absolutely "dead," 
when yet it is so called in comparison with some- 
thing that has more "life," or different "life." 
Thus, for example, a plant is not "dead," but still 
it has not the mental "life" of an animal, and 
hence in a comparison it is sometimes called 
"dead." An animal has "life," but compared 
with the soul "life" of man, it fades so far into 
the back-ground that it is pronounced "dead." 
It is also true that neither of these lower creatures 
can lift itself into the next higher realm of 
"life." 

Applying this scientific truth to the subject in 
hand, we plainly see that God, pronouncing 



THE FALL. 51 

"death" upon Adam and Eve, did not mean that 
they should become instantly lifeless, as that word 
is commonly understood. Hereby do we cut the 
Gordian knot that presents itself so often to many 
people touching this very thing. 

Many good, truth-loving folk cannot understand 
how a truthful God could say that "death" should 
ensue disobedience, but death did not follow — 
for Adam and Eve continued to live many hun- 
dred years after. From this fact, together with 
what I said in the preceding paragraph, we cannot 
but believe that the penalty of "death" did not 
apply chiefly, if at all, to the physical nature of 
those to whom it was given. 

I feel to aver, however, as guarding the forego- 
ing sentence, that it surely is reasonable to suppose 
that the seeds of death, as we now know it, were 
sown in the fall. We know absolutely nothing of 
what would have been if there had been no trans- 
gression. There might have been a gradual 
transformation of the physical into the spiritual, 
running through hundreds and perhaps thousands 
of years, thus fitting and adjusting man to a heav- 
enly existence. Or the change might have oc- 
curred "as in the twinkling of an eye," like unto 
that promised to the righteous at the last day — or 



52 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

in any of the thousand ways open to the infinite 
Creator. One thing only seems certain, and that 
is, that our body and soul would not have been 
disunited through disease, pain and sorrow, and 
the body left to decompose in the grave. Inas- 
much, however, as God said, "In the day" — that 
very day — "that thou eatest thereof thou shalt 
die;" and inasmuch as Adam and Bve did not 
physically die "in that day," we are drawn to con- 
clude that the term "death" does not primarily 
apply to the body. The only other alternative is 
the soul. We conclude, accordingly, that the pen- 
alty of the law fell on the intellectual, moral and 
spiritual natures of man — spiritual and eternal 
"death." 

What I have to say further I will arrange under 
two topics: Original Sin, and Natural Depravity. 

Original Sin, properly speaking, is simply the 
commission of the first sin, which in its outer form 
was the eating of the fruit of the "tree of the 
knowledge of God and evil," but in its inner spirit, 
was the disobedience of God's plain and simple 
word, or law. 

I will, if you please, for the sake of an easier un- 
derstanding of the subject, range under this head 
the whole result of the fall as it affected Adam and 
Bve. 



THE FALL. 53 

In the first lecture I tried to point out the differ- 
ence existing between man's lower, or animal, and 
higher, or rational, natures. In the light of what I 
then said it is patent to us all that the rational na- 
ture, in virtue of which man was made in the 
" image of God," was designed to reign over the 
"flesh." This it was easy for the rational nature 
to do, for it was created for the throne, and there- 
fore inherited both authority and power to reign. 
Strange and incredible as it may seem to us, when 
the competition between the sense and spirit was 
ushered in, the spirit abdicated, and the sense 
usurped, the throne. This, we observe, inverted 
the order of their constitution, and reversed the 
entire outflow of their being. 

But some one may here ask, "Is then, in view of 
of what you said, the inferior nature of man essen- 
tially and inherently evil?" I answer, No, by no 
means. Such a postulate would involve the Maker 
in the creating of something that was not "good." 

I remarked some time ago that this is the very 
nature that fits man for life and activity on the 
earth. Indeed, so far as we can see, it is absolutely 
indispensable to our earthly existence. From this 
we conclude that as it came from God's hand it 
was just as pure and perfect in its realm ) as the 



54 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

superior nature was in its higher realm. The 
point that we must bear in mind lies here, that the 
carnal functions were designed as servants and not 
as masters, — subjects and not rulers. Destined to 
be mortal and temporal, how is it possible for it to 
direct and govern the immortal and eternal spirit? 
This is precisely what it began to do after the fall, 
and what it has continued to do ever since, in all 
who are not u born again" by the spirit of God. 

In this inversion and disturbance of the natures 
in man consists the source and fountain of all actual 
sin. 

This also constitutes the all-sufficient reason for 
exclusion from heaven and consignment to hell. 

I am firm in my belief that the principal result 
of the disobedience in Eden was subjective, con- 
sisting chiefly in the things foregoing. At the 
same time I am also persuaded that there was an 
objective consequence — objective I say, namely, in 
the mind of God. Jehovah's law to Adam and 
Kve was expressive of his perfections. Now when 
they transgressed they offended these attributes. 
They offended them in the sense that it was not 
possible for a truthful and holy, therefore just, God 
to continue ' ( life ' ' when he had threatened * 'death' ' 
in the event of transgression. In point of time it 



THE FALL. 55 

is evident that this objective result came first. 
Afterwards, and by the direct fiat of God, came the 
subjective. I have no faith myself in the theory 
that any disturbance or poisoning resulted from the 
mere eating of the forbidden fruit. In view of 
what has been just said, it is quite manifest that 
man turned away from God, and that God turned 
away from man — in some sense. 

This, then, is the condition of things immedi- 
ately after the fall. The Lawgiver's offended per- 
fections; spiritual "death" of the soul, which in- 
volves, privatively (i) "A want of the fear of God 
and of confidence toward him, and also a want of 
holiness;" (2) "a deficiency of the powers re- 
quisite for attaining holiness by man's own exer- 
tion ; and positively, sinful propensities, viz. , a pre- 
ponderance of carnal powers over reason, as also 
shame and sorrow." 

I now proceed to the consideration of natural de- 
pravity. 

Why and how was the sin of Adam and Eve 
transmitted to their descendants? is a question 
somewhat anxiously asked. Many answers have 
been returned by the learned. Augustine held 
that all the posterity of Adam were, in the most 
literal sense, already in him, and that Adam's sin 



56 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

is, therefore, most justly imputed to all his pos- 
terity. A second explanation is that "Adam was 
not only the natural or seminal, but also the moral 
and federal head of the whole human race, and, 
accordingly, that the sin of Adam is imputed on 
the same principle on which the doings of the head 
of a family, or of the plenopotentiary of a state, are 
imputed to his family or state, although they had 
no personal agency in his doings." A third 
theory deduces the doctrine of imputation from 
God's foreknowledge of what is conditionally pos- 
sible, and which is termed the "Scientia Media" 
of God. This means, in plain words, that God 
foresaw that each one of us, if placed in Adam's 
circumstances, would have done just as he did, 
would have been guilty of the same sin ; therefore, 
God imputes Adam's sin to us. 

I deem that the foregoing theories are sufficient 
in number to show the drift of philosophical 
thought on this subject. I am sure that if any of 
my readers feel to adopt either of these explana- 
tions as their own, I shall not say a word to hinder 
them, although personally I reject all as totally 
unsatisfactory. 

For myself, I do not believe in a direct Divine 
"imputation" at all — I mean an arbitrary imputa- 



THE FALL. 57 

tion. God caused this moral evil to be trans- 
mitted according to the laws in our constitution, 
and that, I hold, is all there is of it. I feel that if 
I should interpret anything more into this truth, 
I should evince a more than ordinary amount of 
inborn or "imputed" depravity! But who will 
say that this is not enough ? Let us recount what 
it involves. This depravity works God's displeas- 
ure against us, alienates us from Him, occasions 
and causes all overt and actual sins, shuts us out 
of heaven, and casts us into hell. Of course it de- 
stroys all our peace, and fills our breast with un- 
ceasing woe. 

' ' Sorrow tracketh wrong, 

As echo follows song, 

On, on, on." 

This, then, is the sad and distressing condition 
of all men since the fall, in view of which we may 
well say with the apostle Paul, "Who shall deliver 
us from the body of this death? I thank God 
through our Lord Jesus Christ." 

"Lord I would spread my sore distress 
And guilt before Thine eyes ; 
Against Thy laws, against Thy grace, 
How high my crimes arise. 
5 



58 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

"I from the stock of Adam came, 
Unholy and unclean ; 
All my original is shame, 
And all my nature sin. 

" Cleanse me, Lord, and cheer my soul 
With Thy forgiving love ; 
Oh, make my broken spirit whole, 
And bid my pains remove. 

"Let not Thy Spirit e'er depart, 
Nor drive me from Thy face ; 
Create anew my sinful heart, 
And fill it with Thy grace." 



LECTURE III. 



Promise of a Deliverer, Call of Abram. 
God's Dealing with the Israelites. 

Gen. iii. 15. 



Gen. iii. 15. I will put enmity between thee and the woman, 
and between thy seed and her seed ; it shall bruise thy head, 
and thou shalt bruise his heel. 



LECTURE III. 

I thank God most devoutly that in this word 
of promise we are led from under the cloud of sin 
and shame and woe into the light of free grace 
and a glorious salvation. 

Although man had no right to look for the 
gracious interposition of his L,ord and Master, still, 
knowing, as we do, that "God is love," we may 
see that such would likely be the case. Indeed, I 
say reverently, that viewing the perfection, yea the 
fatherhood, of God, in the light of Christianity, we 
are compelled to assert that He must — that He 
must if there be a possible plan by which it can be 
accomplished — redeem us once more. 

The above remark is not intended to convey the 
idea that what we now see and know, or think we 
see and know, was also clearly understood by Adam 
and Eve. I do not believe that they enjoyed any 
such hopeful anticipations. They had heard the 
word of doom, and accepted that as their final des- 
tiny. 

(61) 



6Z RAYS OF LIGHT. 

Now in this view of 'their condition we can not 
possibly imagine the thrill of joy that darted 
through their being as they listened to the hope- 
inspiring promise of a Redeemer for them and for 
the race — one who should crush the serpent's 
head. To Eve there must have been a double joy 
in this announcement; for it meant the crushing of 
him who had caused her to fall, and that this 
should be achieved by the "seed of the woman," 
implying, as it did, that she herself should contrib- 
ute to this triumphant consummation. 

Suffice it to say that while our first parents un- 
derstood but very little about the plan of redemp- 
tion then and there promised, they did know 
enough to quicken faith in the love and power of 
their Maker, that in a suitable way the race of men 
should be recovered to God. This faith sufficed to 
reciprocate God's love to them, and they hence- 
forth lived in affectionate obedience to him. I beg 
leave to state in this connection that in the lecture 
— Mediatorial Work of Christ — some more light 
will be thrown on this topic, that I do not feel 
justified to anticipate here. A word more, how- 
ever, may profitably be spoken relative to a forego- 
ing remark. In view of what I averred touching 
the moral recovery of Adam and Eve, the question 



PROMISE OF A DELIVERER. 63 

maybe put, "Does not such recovery involve all 
that they lost? and why, therefore, should their 
offspring be depraved, seeing that the parents were 
"born again" before the conception of the first 
born? My answer is, This question assumes 
more than can be proved. It is by no means 
certain just at what juncture in the history of Adam 
and Kve this promise was given. It is true that it 
probably took place very soon after the Fall, but 
yet that does by no means argue against the sup- 
position that Cain was already conceived, and that 
the depravity of the parents was transmitted to his 
nature. A second answer may appear in this form, 
that although the pardon and restoration of Adam 
and Kve may have taken place instantly after their 
spiritual lapse, it did not bring them back to the 
precise status which they enjoyed before such lapse. 
Philosophically speaking, it is true that their two 
distinct natures, which, so to speak, had changed 
places, the flesh becoming regnant and the spirit 
servant, in the Fall, had been restored to their 
proper places ; at the same time it is easy to con- 
ceive that there was left, as the ravages of dis- 
obedience, a signal insubordination of the flesh. 
The former once humiliated and the latter once' 
exalted, betokens and prophesies an evil that can 



64 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

only be overcome by the power of Divine Grace. 
Just why this should be, may never be very evident 
in the "nature of the case." It is properly 
relegated to the arcana of the Absolute. It is, 
however, a proper matter for belief that all this 
should be so, "for so it seemed good in His sight," 
in order to bring the highest good to the race, and 
the most splendid glory to His own wisdom, power 
and grace. Of one thing we are absolutely cer- 
tain : that Cain, supposably the first born, was 
desperately wicked, the germ or tendency of which 
was an inheritance ; and that all men from him 
down to the child just born are not one whit 
better. This fact is stronger than any and all 
opposing theories that have ever been "evolved 
out of the inner consiousness " of philosophers. 

But we turn back to the promise. In its light 
we can say that God has turned in favor unto man, 
for the sake and because of the prospective work 
and merits of the "Seed of the Woman." So also 
may Adam and Eve not only, but all men every- 
where, "repent and believe" and turn lovingly 
unto God, by the help and grace offered them 
by Him who "shall bruise the serpent's head." 
My conviction is, that Adam and Eve accepted 
the proffered help and are saved ; Cain refused it 



PROMISE OF A DELIVERER. 65 

and was cursed. Abel and Setli accepted and 
were good and holy men ; and as for the rest of 
the family we know nothing, although we may 
conjecture that some were saved and others lost. 

The Scriptures teach us that in the line of Seth 
were many holy men, one of whom never saw 
death, and it is said, " He was not, for God took 
him." As the ages rolled by the people waxed 
worse and worse. In the course of 1600 years 
after the creation, u God saw that the wickedness 
of man was great in the earth, and that every 
imagination of the thought of his heart was only 
evil continually." 

' ' But Noah found grace in the sight of the 
Ivord." "Noah was a just man, and perfect in 
his generation, and Noah walked with God." 
The blotting out of man by the great "Catas- 
trophe," the deluge, next ensued. Noah and his 
wife, with his three sons and their Wives, con- 
stituted the remnant of the human race after the 
flood subsided. These eight persons were the nu- 
cleus of new nations of men. God renewed with 
a sign the great and precious promises of His favor 
upon all humanity. A new spiritual seed was 
again planted in the earth. Another opportunity 
was granted, and another effort was made, to im- 



66 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

part a heavenward impulse to the coming genera- 
tions. This for two reasons : first, for the im- 
mediate weal of those ages ; and secondly, for the 
purpose of hastening the "fulness of time" for 
the advent of the " Seed of the woman." 

But the oncoming generation were wayside 
ground. They gathered rocks upon their soil, so 
that the seed could not germinate and bring forth 
grain. The impulse imparted was resisted, and 
the nations, as before the flood, instead of upward 
went downward, so that there were but few who 
had the fear of the Lord before their eyes. The 
exigency of the times and the character of God's 
plan of redemption, demanded that a new and 
superior method should be originated and intro- 
duced, by which to prepare the world for the 
promised Redeemer. 

THE CALL OF ABRAM. 

Abram, afterward named Abraham, was a native 
of Ur of the Chaldees (Gen. xv. 7 ; Acts vii. 2 and 
3). After the first call fell on his ear, and in obe- 
dience thereto, he, with his father's family, trav- 
eled toward Canaan, the place of his future home, 
according to promise; sojourning at Haran for a 
certain period of time. Here the Lord called the 



PROMISE OF A DELIVERER. 6j 

second time, and again Abram responded, this 
time under the special guidance of Providence, 
completing his journey to a u land I will shew 
thee" — named above. 

Critics have tried their best to discredit the his- 
toric existence of this sublime Old Testament 
character, but resulting chiefly in discrediting 
their own critical acumen, and personal piety and 
reverence. Dozy, a great Arabic scholar of Iyey- 
den, declares that "Abraham was originally the 
name of a stone-fetish, and Sarah the name of a 
hollow in which it was placed." Another scholar, 
Goldziher, says: "Abraham was originally the 
starry sky divinely worshiped." Still other critics 
aver that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were gods of 
the old Hebrew Pantheon. I give these instances 
from among many others, as illustrative of the 
length to which men go to overthrow the record of 
the Holy Scriptures, and at the same time to show 
how they antagonize and refute each other. When 
Satan assumes the role of critic he always makes 
bad work of it, for he is at home anywhere but in 
the Bible. One of the best arguments for Christ 
is Christianity; the best argument for the personal 
existence of Abraham is the Hebrew race. That 
race now exists and has existed for upwards of 



68 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

four thousand years. It must be accounted for, 
but how can it be without a head, an organizer, so 
to speak ? And pray why shall we throw away 
the record of its origin in the Scriptures, at least 
before we have a better one ? Now Moses, the in- 
spired historian, writes plainly and deliberately, 
that the head and organizer of the Hebrew race is 
Abraham. / accept the record as literal and bona 
Jide ) and reject all opposing theories. 

If the question should arise, why was it necessary 
for God to call Abraham away from his country 
and friends and family into Canaan, a place which 
he knew not ? — a twofold answer may be ventured. 

First — It may have been necessary in order that 
he might be made solely dependent on a higher 
wisdom and power and authority than any earthly. 
Abraham's family and friends and country were 
idolatrous. Both his moral inheritance and en- 
vironments were evil and evil only. "Kvil com- 
munications corrupt good manners." Humanly 
speaking, it would have been morally impossible to 
train Abraham for his life mission among such sur- 
roundings. The wicked influences pressing upon 
him from every side would have proved too much 
for him. "But nothing is impossible with God," 
you say. That is true; still God does not usually 



PROMISE OF A DELIVERER. 69 

develop His purpose on the earth without all rea- 
sonable precautions. God is not prodigal with His 
miraculous powers. For, reading the narrative of 
His interpositions for man, one is impressed with 
the fact that between the exercise of ordinary pre- 
caution and miraculous power, the All-wise and 
Almighty generally chooses the former. 

It is plainly evident, therefore, for reasons 
stated above, that Abraham would likely be com- 
manded to forsake "all" in Haran, to follow the 
Lord whither He would lead him. 

It cannot be denied that the inhabitants of Ca- 
naan were just as wicked as those of Chaldea. 
What advantage accrued to Abraham by shifting 
him out of "the pan into the fire? " Much every 
way. He was separated from his friends and asso- 
ciates and surroundings, whom he touched daily, 
to live in a comparatively isolated condition. Al- 
though in his new home he saw idolatry and many 
other abominations, he did not so directly come 
in contact with them. He was much freer from 
' ' evil communications. ' ' Again, this very separa- 
tion and isolation threw him more directly and 
voluntarily on the help of God: He sought not 
the vain help of man, but the power and guidance 
of Jehovah. 



70 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

Second — Another reason likely lies in the fact of 
the favorable location of Canaan. Canaan takes its 
name from " Canaan, the youngest son of Ham, 
and grandson of Noah, who settled here after the 
confusion of tongues at Babel, and divided the 
country among his. eleven sons, each of whom be- 
came the head of numerous tribes, that ultimately 
became a distinct nation.' ' This country is also 
known by various other names : The Land of Is- 
rael, The Land of Jehovah, The Land of Promise, 
The Holy Land, The Land of Judah, and Palestine; 
some passages in Scripture refer to it as " Earth' ' 
and the "Land," likely in view of its location and 
character. It measures about two hundred miles 
North and South by eighty to one hundred miles 
East and West. It comprises within its borders the 
greatest variety of climate, and splendid fertility of 
soil — "a land flowing with milk and honey." By 
virtue of mountains, and waters and deserts around, 
it serves as a natural refuge to its inhabitants, pro- 
tecting largely from hostile invasions. Moreover, 
the very soil and climate and scenery was adapted to 
inspire and foster a lively and healthy religious 
sentiment and activity. In fine, it was the spot, in- 
finitely above any other, destined from eternity to 
become the cradle of an "elect people." In the 



PROMISE OF A DELIVERER. 7 1 

light of these facts, I do not hesitate to say that we 
find here a complete justification of Abraham's call 
into Canaan. 

Abraham, under the leading of Providence, set- 
tled in Shechem. The promise went forth from 
God that "in Abraham and his seed shall all the 
nations of the earth be blessed." This language, 
doubtless, had reference to succeeding generations 
of men all over the earth, but "special reference to 
Christ and Christianity. 

In point of fact, this is exactly what has been, 
and now is, the case. Generally speaking, wher- 
ever the Hebrew race came in contact with other 
nations, some blessing was left behind ; and in the 
most absolute sense, wherein Christ in Christianity 
touches, a most benign and exalting effect is pro- 
duced. 

The promise reads "To thee and thy seed." 

Now the immediate seed of Abraham was Isaac, 
and the seed of Isaac was Jacob, and the seed of 
Jacob was the twelve patriarchs — I allude to the 
line of promise and decree of God — and the twelve 
patriarchs were the fountain heads of the twelve 
tribes. Up to this time there are only individual 
Hebrews, and as yet no Nation. But God's plan 
for the world's redemption involves not a few only, 



72 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

but many, — even many hundred years before the 
Saviour's advent in the flesh, — and this for several 
reasons. First, individuals might withstand all 
the evil influences crowding upon them from their 
surroundings, but not half so well as when en- 
couraged and supported by national life ; secondly, 
individuals might do something in the way of pro- 
moting the knowledge of God and true worship of 
Him, but a nation can do infinitely more. In- 
dividuals might have and make use of rites, or- 
dinances and ceremonies for their moral and 
spiritual edification and upbuilding, but a collec- 
tion of individuals, bound together into an organic 
unit, can make incalculably better use of them. 
From these premises we naturally conclude that the 
seed of Abraham will not only be like the "sand 
of the sea-shore" and the "stars of the sky" for 
number, but also that these many will be one na- 
tion. "E Pluribus Unum." "In union there is 
strength." This one great and mighty nation, in 
the most "goodly land " of the wide world, if they 
remain in the favor of the infinite Jehovah, will be 
proof against all the corruptions and machinations 
of the world and the devil. This is not all. Such 
will be able to destroy the nations that were 
morally "ready to perish," to declare liberty to 



PROMISE OF A DELIVERER. 73 

the captives among the residue, who were awaiting 
the coming of the u Day of Jehovah." This na- 
tion will be a savor of life unto life to an untold 
multitude, and a savor of death unto death to all 
the rest, who had steeled their hearts against the 
appeal of Iyove. 

The foregoing observations lead us to see that 
the selling of Joseph, one of the patriarchs, into 
Egypt ; his godly and honorable career in the 
court of Pharoah ; the removal of Jacob and his 
sons to the same country ; the slavery of the 
Hebrews through a number of centuries, during 
which time they increased from seventy souls to 
upwards of three millions ; their deliverance at the 
hand of Moses ; their sojourn in the wilderness and 
their final settlement in Palestine, were every one 
the filling up of the details of God's plan of re- 
demption for them and for us. 

This bondage in Egypt secured not only that 
there should be a great increase in numbers, grow- 
ing out of their mode of life and the influence of 
climate, etc., but that, on account of their common 
interests, common religion, and common suffer- 
ings, they should be insolubly compacted and 
united as a people, who reckoned themselves the 
children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 
6 



74 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

Their miraculous deliverance through Moses 
impressed them anew with their littleness and de- 
pendence, and God's greatness and love. By this 
bondage and this deliverace they were disciplined 
and taught to yield themselves into the mighty 
hand of God. The detention in the wilderness, 
although primarily caused by their own moral 
weakness and cowardice, was a part of God's plan 
to prepare and equip them for an independent 
national life. Up to this time the people were not 
prepared for, and God had not given them, laws 
and rites and ordinances commensurate with their 
present and future needs and greatness. But a 
new epoch in their history is at hand : God takes 
a great step forward. Fasts and feasts, rites and 
ordinances, laws and precepts, are proclaimed and 
established. In the tabernacle, a central place of 
worship is furnished ; and in the Priesthood, a 
Mediatorship between the people and God is vouch- 
safed and warranted. Through these instrumen- 
talities, and during the season of this wilderness 
life, the Hebrews advanced a thousand cubits in 
their national life and in the knowledge of God. 

It does not avail to say that for all that the Lord 
had done, the Israelites fell again and again into 
all sorts of vices and crimes and sins. Is not the 



PROMISE OF A DELIVERER. 75 

same thing true now, with all our nineteenth cen- 
tury light and grace ? Why then should we ex- 
pect more from those people than we do of our- 
selves — I mean than many among us do. This I 
say not to justify them, but only to show some- 
thing of the depth of human depravity then and 
now. One thing is sure, namely, the Israelites 
were almost infinitely above the rest of mankind 
in character and conduct. 

At this point of our discussion, it may not be 
without good results to glance merely at the phil- 
osophy of the various Heaven-ordained institutions 
in the possession of the Hebrews. I have not the 
time to enter into details, nor does the scope of this 
lecture demand it; but I shall present the matter 
merely in a general way, to show that the L,ord is 
a God of wisdom and order. 

We take, first, the Priesthood. The setting apart 
for his holy office, the induction into his office, 
the garments or robes which he wore, his peculiar 
and specific function as a priest in the outer court, 
and in the Holy Place, and the High Priest once a 
year in the Most Holy Place — all these are powerful 
factors in teaching the people the holiness, justice 
and love of God. The same truths were impressed 
by the various sacrifices and offerings, and the ad- 



J 6 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

ditional fact that God required a yielding of them- 
selves and all theirs to His cause and service. The 
different feasts and seasons of rejoicing stirred up 
their memories of God's gracious dealings in the 
past, and led their minds to His promises for the 
future, and thus developed a spirit of praise and. 
trust and renewed consecration. 

Circumcision was a perpetual reminder of Jeho- 
vah's covenant with them through Abraham, Isaac 
and Jacob, and, of course, also of their dedication 
to God and of the necessity of cutting away sin and 
of a life of purity and virtue. 

The scape-goat — one slain and the other sent into 
the wilderness — spoke loudly of atonement and 
consequent forgiveness and forgetfulness — even to 
the extent of oblivion — of sins. 

The Tabernacle and its service, and the place of 
God's presence in the Holy of holies, joined in 
declaring the majesty and perfections of God, and 
the depravity of man and his absolute need of 
atonement. 

Then there was also an abstract rule of conduct, 
the Ten Commandments. These magnified the 
relations between man and God and man and 
man, and the duties inseparably attached to these 
relations. 



PROMISE OF A DELIVERER. JJ 

It suffices to observe here that all these tangible 
and visible ordinances, rites and ceremonies, were 
calculated to have a most wholesome effect on the 
Israelites. They conveyed three classes of knowl- 
edge: namely, a knowledge of the holiness, justice, 
love and mercy of God, and His rightful demands 
upon His people ; a knowledge of their awful sin- 
fulness and their inequality to God's requirements ; 
and a knowledge of the advent of a Priest who 
should make atonement in his own blood, and 
through whom they should not only have pardon 
of sin, but also help to live a life of purity and 
obedience to the commands and precepts of God. 

We now take a forward look. We lift up our 
eyes and behold the promise of God fulfilled. 
Moses is dead, but Joshua takes his place. The 
mighty host of Israel takes possession of the 
" goodly" Canaan. Every step is hotly contested, 
but under the guidance of Him who laughs in de- 
rision at His enemies, their prior rights are estab- 
lished and secured, the land is divided, and the 
tribes settle in their allotted places. 

From this time forward the spectacle presented 
in the conduct of the Israelites is by no means al- 
ways pleasant to our vision. Disobedience and 
idolatry were followed by the judgments of God, 



78 RAYS OF I.IGHT. 

which in turn were succeeded by repentance and a 
hearty turning to their offended Ruler. After a 
season of peace and unbounded prosperity they 
again forgot the L,ord and again were punished, or 
disciplined, and again they returned to their "first 
love." 

The history of this nation is so well known that 
I refrain entering into details concerning it. But 
this one matter I wish firmly to impress, namely, 
that in spite of all this very checkered life, in spite 
of all these oft defections and lapses, in spite of all 
the moral and spiritual deformity which we per- 
ceive, there were many, very many, among them 
who remained true to the covenant of promise, 
and who constituted the "salt of the earth" and 
the "light of the world" during those ages. God's 
plan for the world was not defeated, but consum- 
mated. While many, yes, even the majority of the 
Jews refused to accept Christ when He appeared 
among them, still, thank the Lord, there were 
many who like Zacharias were "devout men," and 
who, like Simeon, could say: "Now lettest thou 
thy servant to depart in peace, for mine eyes have 
seen thy salvation; a light to lighten the Gentiles 
and a glory to thy people Israel." More than this. 
This leaven which God had placed in Canaan had 



PROMISE OF A DELIVERER. 79 

more or less leavened the whole lump. Thus it 
was that at the appearing of the Son of God 
in Bethlehem's lowly stable, the Magi from the 
East, guided by a star, came to worship and offer 
their gold, frankincense and myrrh. For myself, 
I gladly cherish the belief that "all the nations 
of the earth were blest" through the "seed of 
Abraham," as agents in the hand of the triune 
God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. "Lift up 
your heads, O ye gates, and the King of glory shall 
come in." This voice, heard and heeded by many 
among the Jews and Gentiles, accounts for the tri- 
umphal march in the earth of "great David's 
greater Son," from the time of his crucifixion to 
the present. 

I have fulfilled my purpose. I have furnished 
the link between the Fall of the "first Adam" 
and the blessed advent of the "second Adam from 
Heaven." 

"In songs of sublime adoration and praise, 
Ye pilgrims for Zion who press, 
Break forth and extol the great Ancient of Days, 
His rich and unmerited grace. 

"His love, from eternity, burn'd for our race, 
Broke forth and discover' d its flame ; 
And now with the cords of His kindness He draws, 
And brings us to love His great name. 



80 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

"Oh, had He not pitied the state we were in, 
Our bosoms His love had ne'er felt : 
We all would have lived, would have died too in sin, 
And sunk with the load of our guilt. 

"What was there in man that could merit esteem, 
Or give the Creator delight? 
'Twas "even so, Father," we ever must sing, 
Because it seemed good in Thy sight. 

"Urged on by His grace, did the Saviour appear, 
The bearer of help from above : 
Now all who are thirsting may freely draw near 
And drink in the streams of His love. 

"Then give all the glory to His holy name, 
To Him all the glory belongs ; 
Be ours the high joys still to sound forth His fame, 
And crown Him in each of our songs." 



LECTURE IV. 



The God-Man. 

Luk£ ii. 7. 



Luke ii. 7, "And she brought forth her first-born son, and 
wrapped him in swaddling-clothes, and laid him in a manger 
because there was no room for them in the inn." 



LECTURE IV. 

1 ' Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Amen. ' ' 
"Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift." 
"God so loved the world that He gave His only 
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him 
should not perish, but have everlasting life." 

The question is sometimes asked, was redemp- 
tion by Jesus Christ the only way by which it was 
possible to bring men "from death unto life and 
from the power of Satan unto God?" The answer 
is, we cannot be absolutely certain. However, on 
the basis of God's infmiteness we may infer that it 
was not the only plan. It would at least seem to 
detract from the wisdom and power of God to con- 
clude otherwise than that it was one plan out of 
many possible plans. From all that we can know 
to the contrary, the present scheme may be one of 
a thousand others available to Him with whom all 
things are possible. It will not do to argue that 
we can comprehend redemption through Christ, 
but that we cannot divine how else it could pos- 
sibly be accomplished. Now the truth is that be- 

(83) 



84 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

fore the present plan of salvation was revealed to us 
in the Scriptures, or apart from such revelation, 
the finite mind was not and would not be compe- 
tent to understand how God can save man at all ; 
in fact, even under the light of such revelation 
many still cannot see it. So it is that now we do 
not know how else we might be ransomed from 
sin, but if another plan than the present one had 
been elected and revealed by the L,ord, I doubt not 
that plan would be as easily understood as this one. 
Another reason why I infer a plurality of plans 
available for man's salvation is this: without it, 
avoid it as we may, God is involved in inspiring 
and causing the foulest deeds that have ever been 
perpetrated on earth, namely, Christ's betrayal, 
denial, condemnation and crucifixion — by Judas, 
Peter, the Jewish Council and the soldiers — and 
each and all directly and indirectly implicated. 
For it is plainly evident that to the end that Christ 
may redeem us by His blood, some one must shed 
that blood, and hence we witness the host of hell 
let loose on Him, in the order enumerated above. 
Now surely if this was the only method, God must 
have decreed and ordained that all this should 
come to pass. There was no alternative, and, 
therefore, the instruments, or agents, are not to be 



THE GOD-MAN. 85 

blamed and censured for their diabolical work — 
they must have been passive and helpless. This 
involves the fact that God proceeded on the Jesuit 
motto: "The end justifies the means" — or in 
what the Apostle Paul terms "doing evil that 
good may come." 

How does this accord with our settled belief 
touching the goodness and love and holiness of 
God ? The question is a sufficient answer, inas- 
much as it implies an utter absurdity. In point of 
fact, tens of thousands of good thinking people, of 
a philosophical turn of mind, have become hope- 
lessly entangled in this matter, and have become 
totally lost to Christianity. They assume, and 
were perhaps taught, that the established plan of 
grace was the only possible one ; and upon this 
premise they reasoned out to the logical and in- 
evitable conclusion that God inspired and caused 
men to shed innocent blood. From this they 
shrink with all the enthusiasm and energy of their 
souls, and land perhaps in agnosticism and per- 
haps in positive atheism. 

I am aware of the fact that efforts have been 
made to explain this discrepancy in our notion of 
the character of God, but certainly without settling 
the minds of thinking men. For example, it may 



86 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

and has been said that all these agents, as Judas, 
etc., were wicked men before this tragedy took 
place, and therefore all that was needed was to 
actuate them to carry out their evil nature in the 
commission of this deed, and that not God but the 
devil incited them to it. Again, it is said these 
people had so sinned before that they had fallen 
under the eternal damnation of God ; their destiny 
was sealed, and so now God may properly use them 
for the furtherance of His gracious plan in behalf 
of the world, that whosoever will may be saved. 
Now all these explanations do not touch the un- 
derlying fact, that God must have decreed that 
thus it should be, and that He bent Heaven and 
Earth to fulfil this foreordination. Like Banquo's 
ghost, the thought will "not down" that God 
caused sinful deeds. 

I personally rejoice in the firm conviction that to 
the mind of God there were many plans by which 
he might redeem man. Speaking after the man- 
ner of men, I may say that looking down through 
the vista of the future, God knew exactly what the 
state of society would be from first to last; and not 
only this, but also what the moral and spiritual 
status and conduct of each individual would be, 
from the time of birth to the time of death. Be it 



THE GOD-MAN. 87 

remembered that this knowledge was original, and 
independent of the activity of His will. In other 
words, this knowledge guided and determined what 
His will should choose and ordain, and not the op- 
posite. What he shall choose and do is grounded 
on His knowledge. In this we differ from those 
who hold that God's omniscience is the result of 
foreordination, putting the will first and knowledge 
second, and thus reversing the order of the mind's 
capacities — knowing, feeling, and willing — as re- 
vealed to us in consciousness. 

Following up the statement above made that 
God knew all things from the beginning, and hold- 
ing in His mind different plans of redemption, it is 
easily seen that he may choose and ordain the one 
He pleases. From eternity He knew, and that 
without any decree or foreordination, just pre- 
cisely what the spirit and conduct of all of Christ's 
accusers would be, and consequently He framed 
the given or present plan right into the exigency 
of the times. This may also afford us a clue to 
the reason why Christ's advent and sufferings and 
death did not come earlier in the world's history, 
say right after the Fall. In that event there would 
not have been need of the long preliminary train- 
ing of the world for His coming. The clue lies in 



55 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

this, viz., perhaps there never was a time in all 
the previous ages when all the factors requisite to 
Christ's vicarious death were present. Surely not 
one single feature of these dare be omitted from 
that ordeal, for otherwise Christ's death will not 
suffice. Now there are a large number of details ■ 
involved, and it is very easy to see that some of 
these may never before this have been present; 
and therefore never before this time could the or- 
dained plan be executed. 

In this view of things, God is absolutely cleared 
from any complicity with sin, but He simply caused 
the self-induced wrath of men to praise Him. 

In this view we also see that Redemption is a 
certain fact; for if all the factors of the" present 
plan had never been developed (and we see that 
they might not have been), than another scheme 
was at hand, and another and another, so that we 
are sure of some scheme, without involving God 
in decreeing, or in any way conniving at, sin. 

I now proceed to speak of the Person by whom 
Redemption is made and offered. 

THE SON OF GOD. 

There are several reasons why the Son of Man 
must also be the Son of God, in the one Person, 
Jesus Christ. 



THE GOD-MAN. 89 

i. To reveal God's love to man, and His earnest 
desire to save him. 

As a moral result of the Fall and the conse- 
quent derangement of man's soul-constitution, the 
creature does not only himself hate the Creator, 
but he is very positive that the Creator hates him. 
To eradicate this notion and to show that the op- 
posite is really the case, there is no way more 
forceful and effectual than the gift of His dear 
Son, to live and work, to suffer and die, as He 
did, and of which I shall speak in another lec- 
ture. "Not sparing His own Son, but giving 
Him a ransom for us all," will make such an 
appeal to man that it will open the way for the 
indwelling of that Son to give established "life," 
and instead of " death," and to bring love and 
peace and joy, for hate and shame and sorrow. 

2. To subserve the end of redemption, loyalty to 
God. 

If God had caused a man to be born out of the 
order of nature, and so possibly sinless as Adam, or 
if he had caused an angel to become incarnate; if 
either of these had rescued man from sin, the one 
working such rescue would certainly challenge and 
receive the gratitude, praise and eternal worship of 
the rescued. Indeed, it could not be otherwise, for 
7 



90 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

the substitution rendered by one for another, espe- 
cially when such substitution involves great hard- 
ships, must be an irresistible appeal to the best and 
noblest principles of the heart of the person helped. 
Now this fact would plainly defeat the greatest end 
in view in redemption, viz., as was stated before, 
loyalty toward God, the Creator and L,ord of all. 
It would induce man to worship a creature rather 
than the Creator. This would be an insult to 
Heaven and a drawback to earth, inasmuch as man 
cannot be under such circumstances what he must 
be if his mind, heart and body go out toward God. 
Now the Son of God is God, and hence he who wor- 
ships the Son worships the Father also; and thereby 
is the purpose of God fulfilled. 

3. Another reason why the Son of Man must also 
be the Son of God is this, that the fullest and last 
revelation of God and things may be made to the 
world, and that the creative plan may be completed. 

There is first a realm of pure spirits. After- 
wards, in the creation, there appeared the pure 
material. In man the spiritual and material find 
a point of unity. But there is a wide gulf between 
this condition of the universe and God, the In- 
finite Spirit. Can this gulf be bridged? Yes, in 
the Person of the God-man. In Him there is the 



THE GOD-MAN. 9 1 

highest unity, the rounding out and completion of 
the universe, for it inseparably connects the 
universe with God. In this we behold the mind 
of God in respect to His relation to the universe 
which He created; therefore we find here not only 
a completing of creation but also a revelation of 
God, the Creator. Not a few most profound schol- 
ars hold that the Son of God would have become 
incarnate, in order to consummate what has been 
here outlined, even if Adam had never sinned. 

But as sin has entered the world, how much the 
more is it necessary that God should reveal His 
relation to the world and His will concerning it. 
From this we perceive that it is a matter of the 
utmost importance that this revelation should 
come with most absolute authority ; that He 
should not speak through man of like infirmities 
with us, but that he should speak directly, face to 
face, Himself. Now the Son of God is God, and 
hence he who hears the Son hears the Father also. 

What evidences do we have that the Son of 
Man was also the Son of God? 

i. Predictions; 2. Christ's own declaration; 3. 
Miracles; 4. The Father's testimony; 5. The tes- 
timony of the Apostles ; 6. Divine works ; 7. 
Divine attributes and Divine worship. 



92 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

i. Predictions. 

a. Isaiah, chapter vii. 14: "He shall be called 
Immanuel. For unto us a child is born, unto us a 
son is given, and the government shall be upon 
his shoulder; and His name shall be called Won- 
derful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Ever- 
lasting Father, The Prince of Peace." — ix. 6. 

b. Jeremiah : i ' He shall be called the Lord our 
Righteousness." — xxiii. 6. 

c. Micah: "But thou Bethlehem lEphrata, 
though thou be little among the thousands of 
Judah, yet out of thee shall come forth one that is 
to be Ruler in Israel ; whose goings forth have 
been from of old from everlasting." — v. 2. 

d. John the Baptist: "He it is who coming 
after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's 
latchet I am not worthy to unloose." — i. 27. 

2. Christ's own declaration. 

a. Matthew: "All power is given unto me in 
Heaven and on earth." — xxviii. 18. "Where two 
or three are gathered in my name there am I in the 
midst of them." — xviii. 20. "L,o, I am with you 
alway, even unto the end of the world." — xxviii. 
20. "The High Priest said unto Him, I adjure 
thee by the living God that thou tell us whether 
thou be the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus said 
unto him, Thou hast said."* — xxvi. 63. 



THE GOD-MAN. 93 

b. John: u Before Abraham was I am." — viii. 
58. "The Father hath committed all judgment 
unto the Son, that all men should honor the Son 
even as they honor the Father." — v. 22. "And 
now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own 
self, with the glory which I had with thee before 
the world was." — xvii. 5. 

Many others of the same import. 

3. Miracles. These are so numerous and so dis- 
tinctive of Christ that nothing more than a mere 
allusion need be made in this connection. 

4. The Father's testimony. 

a. At the Saviour's Baptism. "And, lo, the 
heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of 
God descending like a dove and lighting upon 
Him. And, lo, a voice from heaven, saying, This 
is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." 
Matthew iii. 16, 17. 

b. On the Mount of Transfiguration. " This is 
my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear 
ye him." Matt. xvii. 5. 

5. The testimony of the Apostles. 

a. John : "In the beginning was the Word, and 
the Word was with God, and the Word was God." 
— i. 1. "This is the true God and eternal life." 
1 John v. 20. 



94 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

b. Thomas: " My Lord and my God." 

c. Paul: In Christ " dwells all the fullness of the 
Godhead bodily." Col. ii. 9. u God was in 
Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." 2 
Cor. v. 19. 

6. Divine works. 

a. John: "All things were made by Him and 
without Him was not any thing made that was 
made." — i. 3. 

b. Paul: " By Him were all things created that 
are in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible." 
Col. i. 3, 4. 

7. Divine Worship. 

a. John: "That all men should honor the Son 
as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not 
the Son, honoreth not the Father who hath sent 
him." John v. 23, also Rev. v. 9-14. 

b. Paul: "That at the name of Jesus every knee 
should bow, of things in heaven and things in 
earth and things under the earth, and that every 
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to 
the glory of God the Father." Phil. ii. 10 and 11. 
"Let all the angels of God worship him." He- 
brews i. 6. 



THE GOD-MAN. 95 

THE SON OF MAN. 

I have pointed out several reasons why the Son 
of Man must also be the Son of God. I now ad- 
vance to consider several reasons why the Son of 
God must also be the Son of Man. 

i. To subject Himself to the fo'oken law. 

Any being, undertaking to deliver man from 
the curse of the law, must himself live under the 
law, to fulfil it in every jot and tittle. This it is 
that will give merit and value to his vicarious suf- 
ering and death. Now God as God, the Giver of 
the law, cannot possibly subject Himself to the 
law ; for the law adapted to creatures, cannot be 
fulfilled by the Creator, unless He assumes human 
nature. Hence the Scriptures declare that "God 
sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the 
law, to redeem them that were under the law." 
"The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us." 
"Great is the mystery of godliness, God was man- 
ifested in the flesh." "But made himself of no 
reputation, and took upon him the form of a ser- 
vant, and was made in the likeness of men." 

2. The Son of God must also be the Son of man 
for the purpose of attesting the scheme of salvatio7i 
to mart s mind and heart. 

In another section I have shown that the Di- 



g6 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

vinity of Christ is necessary in order that when, 
by suffering and death, he rescues man, man will 
turn in piety and loyalty to the Creator and L,ord, 
and not to a mere creature. But here I observe 
that the humanity of Christ is essential in order to 
subject him to suffering and death by which to 
purchase and attract man's loyalty and worship. 
Moreover, it is requisite that such an atonement 
should not be made save in the eye of man. Other- 
wise man will scarcely be induced to believe in its 
reality, and if he did, it would not, in the very 
nature of things, have the best effect on his char- 
acter and life. 

From the foregoing we reach the conclusion that 
the hypostatic union of the Son of God with the 
Son of Man was a logical and moral necessity. 

The peculiar evidences of Christ's humanity are 
such as these : He was born, he grew in stature 
and in wisdom, He ate, He drank, He slept, He 
rested, He wept, He suffered and He died. 

THE GOD-MAN. 

From what we have seen under sections before, 
taken in connection with the testimony of the 
Scriptures which has been and might be quoted, 
it is very manifest that the Son of God and the Son 



THE GOD-MAN. 97 

of Man must be inseparably united in one person, 
the God-man. 

There have been but a few men in the past his- 
tory of the church who denied this truth and held 
to the notion that the two natures in Christ are in- 
dependent and separable from eath other. But this 
opinion was so radically and openly unreasonable 
and unscriptural that it never gained any consider- 
able foothold and recognition among Christians. 

In respect to the hypostatic union of the two 
natures in the God-man, it is important to state a 
few points touching these natures as such. First, 
let us bear in mind that neither of these natures 
were persons at the moment of the conception and 
birth of Christ. The human nature never had a 
separate personal existence before the Incarnation. 
After the Incarnation it is true that the Saviour's 
human nature was such in all respects, possessing 
the very highest glory, inasmuch as it was the 
same as that of Adam before the Fall. But being 
from its very conception in conjunction with the 
divine nature, although retaining its own peculiar- 
ities, properties, and attributes throughout, the 
human never was anything more than one nature 
in the one Person. An analogy of this mystery is 
found in man. Man has two natures, spiritual 



98 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

and animal. Animal nature is found in indepen- 
dent and separate existence in, say, a horse. 
Spiritual nature is found in an angel. But in man 
the two natures are so completely united that they 
constitute but one person. In this union neither 
of these two natures has had an existence apart 
and before their union. 

This analogy is mentioned to express only the 
mode of union between the two natures in the 
God-man, and not anything in regard to the exist- 
ance or non-existence of the divine nature prior to 
this union. 

When we turn to the oracles of God, we are at 
once taught that the divine nature in the God-man 
is none other than the Son of God, as considered 
before. 

This leads to the logical conclusion that the Son 
of God assumed the Son of Man, that the former 
united Himself with the latter, the. two together 
constituting the God-man. This is the Incarna- 
tion. "Great is the mystery of godliness; God 
manifest in the flesh." 

We see by this that Christ's divine nature was 
truly a Person before the Incarnation. Accordingly 
at the moment of his conception by the Holy Ghost 
in the womb of the Virgin Mary, He who "thought 



THE GOD-MAN. 99 

it not robbery to be equal with God, emptied him- 
self and took upon him the form of a man." Here 
we are taught that the Son of God veiled or put 
aside the distinctive properties that constituted his 
divine personality, in order to limit himself to a 
divine nature only, which nature, with the human 
nature united, constituted the one Person, the 
God-man. If the question be asked, in what points 
or parts did He limit Himself from personality to 
nature ?-I may answer, in all the physical attrib- 
utes that belong to a divine Person, such as om- 
niscience, omnipotence and omnipresence, as also 
divine consciousness. 

The history of the Saviour's childhood, boyhood 
and manhood, compared with each other, teaches 
us that the united natures in him, or the Person 
of Christ, was unique and peculiar to the God- 
man. In his childhood and youth the human 
nature seems to have the ascendency — the divine 
being entirely hidden. At the age of twelve the 
divine nature advances, perhaps suddenly, so that 
it is already clearly manifested. There may be 
from this on a gradual development of the divine 
up to the time of his baptism and the voice from 
Heaven, saying: "This is my beloved Son in 
whom I am well pleased." Certainly from this 



100 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

time forth the God-man, owing not to His human, 
but to His Divine, nature, had developed into and 
possessed all the fullness of the God-head bodily; 
at the same time, owing not to His divine, but to 
His human, nature, He had developed into and 
possessed all the fullness of manhood bodily. 
That is to say, the God-man enjoyed all the per- 
fections of Deity and humanity, bound together by 
one personal consciousness. 

What can be said in respect to the relation and 
communication subsisting between the two natures 
of the God-man? In the case of man, the spiritual 
and animal natures each has its own peculiar 
sphere of activity. The spiritual cannot perform 
the work of the animal, nor can the animal that of 
the spiritual. However, by virtue of the fact that 
the spiritual nature is almost infinitely above the 
animal in man, it was shown that the animal 
functions are magnified by the spiritual nature. 
I refer to man in his pristine glory. 

This I think analogous to what is found in 
Christ. Both natures have their own distinctive 
sphere of activity. But the divine in Christ, 
being infinitely above the human, has through 
contact and communication a magnifying and up- 
lifting influence upon the human nature. 



THE GOD-MAN. IOI 

As in the activities of the two natures in man, 
that of each is ascribed and credited to the person 
— man: so also is the same done in the case of the 
Saviour. To illustrate: In man, the animal nature 
hungers, thirsts, sleeps, but we do not say that the 
animal nature does so, but we say the man hungers, 
thirsts, etc. So the spiritual nature reasons, wor- 
ships, etc., but we do not ascribe this to the spirit- 
ual nature, but to the ma7i. Now in the case of 
Christ, His divine nature is omniscient, omnipo- 
tent, etc., and His human nature labors, suffers, 
and dies. Yet all those attributes, functions and 
facts are not ascribed and credited to the respective 
natures to which they belong, but to Jesus Christ, 
the God-man. 

In the light of the foregoing statements we may 
well believe the Apostle's words that "Christ is all 
in all" — in Creation, Redemption, Worship, and in 
Heaven. The God-man is the foundation and cor- 
nerstone of all true theology, as "He is the chief 
among ten thousand and the one altogether lovely,' ' 
to every ransomed and sanctified soul. "To him, 
every knee must bow, of things in Heaven and of 
things on the earth and of things under the earth, 
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is I^ord, 
to the glory of God the Father." The God-man 



102 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He that 
cometh to the Father must come through Him. 

" Ere the blue heavens were stretched abroad, 
From everlastiug was the Word ; 
With God He was ; the Word was God, 
And must divinely be adored. 

"By His own power were all things made, 
By Him supported all things stand : 
He is the whole creation's Head, 
And angels fly at His command. 

"But lo ! He leaves those heavenly forms, 
The Word descends and dwells in clay, 
That He may converse hold with worms, 
Drest in such feeble flesh as they. 

"Mortals with joy behold His face, 
The eternal Father's only Son ; 
How full of truth ! how full of grace ! 

When through His form the Godhead shone. 

' Archangels leave their high abode, 

To learn new mysteries here, and tell 

The love of our descending God, 
The glories of Immanuel." 



LECTURE V. 



The God-Man's Mediatorial Work, 

i Tim. ii. 5, 6. 



/ Tim. ii. 5, 6. For there is one God and one Mediator be- 
tween God and man, the Man Christ Jesus ; who gave himself 
a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. 



LECTURE V. 

The last lecture was devoted to the discussion 
of the Person of the God-man. Three things were 
therein established, viz., that our Saviour has a di- 
vine nature, and a human nature, and that these 
two unite in one Person. 

I now advance a step, to speak of the work 
which the God-man performed for our redemption, 
which is called the Mediatorial Work. 

Ivet us here observe several facts. First, the fall 
had so affected man's intellect that it was obtuse 
and darkened. He could not any more clearly 
understand and compass God's law and precepts. 
He was also inflated with pride and self-will, so that 
he cared not to know. Accordingly we find that 
the teachers of God's Word, especially at the time 
of Christ's advent, gave themselves up to com- 
menting on the silly comments of their predeces- 
sors, and not to the ascertainment of the mind of 
the Spirit in the Word. Second, the transgression 
of Adam and Eve had brought upon the whole 
human race the penalty of the law, which was 
5* (105) 



106 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

death — spiritual and eternal. Spiritual death came 
at once ; eternal death was a foregone conclusion, 
inasmuch as that is nothing but spiritual death 
extended beyond the confines of time. Now, to 
overcome the former and avert the latter, satisfac- 
tion had to be made to God's moral attributes. 

Third, the Fall had thrown man out of relation 
and harmony with his Creator and Ruler. He 
must be restored to an estate in which he can 
again avail himself of such rites and ceremonies 
and means of grace as God sees fit to give him for 
the perfecting of his spiritual life. 

These three points give us a clue to the offices 
which Christ must assume as man's Redeemer, 
namely, Prophet, Priest, and King. 

PROPHET. 

From the prophetic office Christ is called a 
prophet? in Deut. xviii. 18; Matt. xxi. n ; John vi. 
14; Luke vii. 16, and xxiv. 19. An Evangelist in 
Isaiah xli. 27. A Master in Isaiah 1. 4, and lxiii. 1. 
A Rabbi in Matt, xxiii.8, 10; John. iii. 2. 

As a Prophet it was incumbent on the Saviour 
to give instruction in four particulars: the law and 
the prophets, the past and the future. It was inti- 
mated a short time ago that the religious teachers 



THE GOD-MAN'S MEDIATORIAL WORK. IO7 

of the Jews were short-sighted and corrupt. They 
had so thoroughly glossed and blurred the Old 
Testament Scriptures that neither they nor the lay 
people understood their real meaning and import. 
This fact is only fully seen when we study the 
Sacred Books of those times — the Talmud, etc. 
However, Christ Himself brings forward some of 
their odious and defiled stuff in the Sermon on the 
Mount. 

In general, it may be said that touching the 
Law, the Rabbis taught, and the people believed, 
they were blameless. The law was deprived of its 
inner spirit and demands, and, therefore, nothing 
but the letter remained, which they flattered them- 
selves they had fulfilled by their rites and cere- 
monies, their long prayers and many alms-deeds. 
We can easily perceive how this took away all need 
of a spiritual Saviour. Thus Paul said, referring 
to his life in sin: "I was alive without the Law 
once, but when the Law came sin revived, and I 
died." Indeed the whole nation trusted in them- 
selves that they were righteous, and that the rest 
of the world lay in sin and under the curse of God. 

The God-man came forward therefore as a 
Prophet, and uncovered the moral law and divine 
precepts as promulgated in the Old Testament, 



108 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

particularly through Moses and the prophets, and 
declared that the law was spiritual and that they 
were carnal; that it demanded not only external 
decorum, but internal purity; that both Jews and 
Gentiles were alike under the law and that all 
alike were sinners, that none had nor could, un- 
aided, meet its demands; that the law was an 
outward exponent of the character of God and His 
hatred to sin, and that while God required its ful- 
fillment, no one could do so under a dispensation of 
works, but only in a dispensation of grace; that 
while it was truly a Rule of Life to the saint, it 
was a mere schoolmaster to the sinner to draw 
him to Christ, Himself, through whom needed 
grace was offered. He showed, furthermore, that 
the moral law and the divine precepts were not 
alone in revealing that "none is righteous, no, not 
one" and that "all have sinned and come short of 
the glory of God;" but that these were comple- 
mented and supported by the Levitical law. That 
this law was scarcely anything mbre than a 
tangible and concrete, instead of abstract, expres- 
sion of the same imperative truths. That, accord- 
ingly, this law could not possibly take the place of 
a Redeemer from heaven, for it could not make the 
corner thereunto perfect. He insisted that both 



THE GOD-MAN'S MEDIATORIAL WORK. IO9 

these sets of laws through Moses, and all the 
additional teachings of the prophets, were intended 
to exhibit right character and conduct, and not to 
create them. To obtain these they must "all be 
born again" by water and the Spirit. But this 
takes place alone by acceptance of Him who stood 
in the midst of them. 

In respect of the predictions of the prophets con- 
cerning Christ and the glory of His kingdom, as 
might be expected, the rabbis were as far out of 
the way as in the case of the law. Believing them- 
selves pure and unspotted as touching the law, it 
is patent that they would misinterpret the charac- 
ter and mission of the Messiah. Of course they 
would look for the advent of one who should bring 
deliverance. On account of disobedience, the Jew- 
ish government had fallen into the hands of the 
Romans. This Roman yoke was galling their 
necks, and was exceedingly odious to their dignity. 
Should they, the elect people of Jehovah, be sub- 
ject to these Roman dogs ? No ; this cannot, this 
dare not so remain. The Messiah spoken of by 
the old prophets must hasten his approach. We 
desire, we demand deliverance. Such language 
might have been uttered. Now, not recognizing 
their spiritual, but groaning under their civil, bond- 



IIO RAYS OF LIGHT. 

age, no wonder that they read and interpreted 
their wishes and desires into those long-standing 
prophecies. It is imperative, therefore, that this 
" teacher come from God," should unearth and set 
forth the true intent and meaning of all. We see, 
accordingly, that on every proper occasion he se- 
lects from the prophet's roll such passages as spoke 
of the Messiah and His mission and work, and 
then applies those sayings to Himself, at the same 
time insisting on it that He is come for the pur- 
pose of establishing a spiritual kingdom and of de- 
livering men from the bondage of death and the 
power of the devil. 

Again, in the matter of Christ's teaching con- 
cerning the present and the future, the following 
may be profitably mentioned. In the nature of 
things, the Old Testament dispensation was a train- 
ing school. The people's minds were darkened to 
such an extent that they could not take in the large 
thoughts of God. As the people -became prepared, 
God meant to reveal more and more of His mind 
and will. In point of fact this was done. The 
coming of the God-man, however, marked an epoch 
in the unfolding of the Father's purposes and will 
in reference to the world, which also involves a 
fuller revelation of man's relations and duties toward 



THE GOD-MAN'S MEDIATORIAL WORK. Ill 

both God and His fellow men. Many things re- 
mained to be said that were a de novo revelation. 
Thus we find positive precepts, and underlying 
principles in all His private and public teachings. 
This is notably so in His mountain sermon. So 
also an advance step was taken in reference to the 
disclosure of the future. This Prophet lifted the 
vail from the future in many ways. He spoke of 
His own death, even in detail. He spoke of the 
sufferings and death of His apostles. He prophe- 
sied the persecutions that should come to His own 
church. He declared His kingdom's final success 
and triumph. He lifted the gates of Heaven, a?id 
drew back the curtains of hell. 

Now bear in mind that in all these things Christ 
spoke as one having authority. No wonder that 
the people were astonished. Their stupid teachers 
had caused them all to fall asleep, but here is a 
Rabbi who enlightens their mind,- thrills their 
heart, and moves their will. Nicodemus voices 
their sentiment in saying: "We know that Thou 
art a teacher come from God." 

It is also profitable to observe in this place that 
the Saviour's divine words were supported by His 
divine works. Just how far the people generally 
were really benefited, spiritually, by His miracu- 



112 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

lous works, it is impossible to tell. At the same 
time it is, doubtless, true that the ability to per- 
form superhuman works was associated with, and, 
therefore, expected of Him who made claim of the 
Messiahship. While some may have been more 
prejudiced against Christ on account of His miracu- 
lous powers, it was certainly not owing to lack of 
intellectual persuasion of the soundness of His 
claim, but rather to the perverseness and stubborn- 
ness of their hearts and wills, in spite of better 
knowledge. Theirs was a clear case of sinning 
against light; and, in case of many, of blasphemy 
against the Holy Ghost. On the other hand, we 
have reason to believe that many of the common 
people accepted Him as their Redeemer and Lord, 
from the fact that He had healed their sick, opened 
the eyes of the blind, made the lame to walk, 
loosed the tongue of the dumb, and raised the dead. 

In view of all this, Jesus may well challenge the 
people to believe His words for His very work's 
sake. 

From all this we learn that Christ's office of 
Prophet was vitally essential to His mission as 
man's redeemer. He brought light into a dark 
place, and caused the world to see the day of her 
visitation. He showed knowledge in three all-im- 



THE GOD-MAN'S MEDIATORIAL WORK. 113 

portant truths: man's depravity and helplessness, 
salvation and deliverance through a crucified and 
risen Saviour, and a day of "Judgment," followed 
by heaven and hell. 

PRIEST. 

The second office of the God-man is the priestly, 
or sacerdotal. In this capacity He redeems man, 
and reconciles God to man. In this office He per- 
forms the part of the Old Testament priest, who 
propitiated God by the sacrifice he offered for the 
people — which priest and sacrifice were a type of 
the true Priest, Jesus Christ. Unlike the Old 
Testament priest, Christ became both the offerer 
and the sacrifice, and therefore there was intrinsic 
and essential merit in it. 

Theologians usually divide the sacerdotal office 
into two parts, one of which is designated as the 
Atonement, and the other as Intercession. The 
first of these was accomplished in full by Christ's 
earthly work ; the second is being carried on since 
His session at the right hand of God. 

Atonement. — We do well at this juncture to stop 
and call to mind what I stated in the second lec- 
ture, "The Fall." It is this, in substance: The 
effect of the fall is two -fold, subjective and object- 



114 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

ive. The subjective result is the disturbance of 
man's spiritual constitution, etc. The objective 
consequence has to do with the mind of God. God, 
as Lawgiver, had promulgated a just and righteous 
law, the sanctions of which were an adequate ex- 
pression of His own character and relation to Adam 
and Eve ; as well as a rule of life and voice of warn- 
ing to them. It promised "life" on one hand and 
"death" on the other. In the transgression of this 
law, "death" followed — this was subjective. But 
this disobedience was also a crime. God was dis- 
pleased with man. In a sense He had turned away 
from man. His justice and holiness had been of- 
fended. He is a God of truth, and He had said in 
the event of transgression they (Adam and Eve) 
should surely die. However, "God is love," and 
willeth not that any should die — eternally. Now 
what can be done that He may be just and yet jus- 
tify all who call upon His name? Here it is that 
God lays hold on one who is "mighty to save and 
strong to deliver." Please bear in mind that the 
great end of redemption is the moral and spiritual 
restoration of man. But in order to realize this 
end, God must help man. In order, however, that 
He may be justified in this, His justice and holi- 
ness and veracity must all be satisfied and vindi- 



THE GOD-MAN'S MEDIATORIAL WORK. 115 

cated. This can only be done through a substitute 
for man. 

The first thing that substitute has to observe is 
the broken law of God. This law must be kept 
inviolate, according to the original demand. By 
this, two things are accomplished: God's holiness 
is established, and the substitute establishes His 
own merit and worthiness, and thereby brings 
Himself into a proper position for vicarious suffer- 
ing for man. 

Man himself could not possibly keep the law, for 
he is condemned by the law on account of original 
and actual sin. The God-man, therefore, is born 
without sin, and although tempted and tried like 
as man is, He yet remains without actual trans- 
gressions. He challenges even His bitter enemies 
to say aught against Him, but there is no accusa- 
tion. 

This is called Christ's active obedience, and is 
the imperative prerequisite to all His other work as 
priest. 

As the God-man becomes man's substitute in 
fulfilling the demand of the law, so also does He 
take man's place in suffering the penalty of the 
violated law. Let us see how this is. Some main- 
tain that Christ suffered the exact equivalent that 



Il6 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

man would suffer eternally, if he were not ransomed 
and restored. Rendering the exact equivalent, 
God was plainly justified to remit the penalty on 
man and turn favorably to him. This I do not 
believe, for two reasons: First, It is utterly im- 
possible for Jesus Christ to suffer an exact equiva- 
lent of man's suffering in time and eternity. For 
the principal factors in man's suffering is conscious- 
ness of sin and pain of conscience. Now neither 
of these factors can possibly be transferred to Christ. 
As a substitute, I readily conceive how the sins 
of men lay heavily on His heart, and weighed 
mightily on His body. In view of His unique per- 
son as God-man His sufferings could have infinite 
merit; but still all this is not identical and equiva- 
lent suffering. 

Second, if the above proposition were literally 
true then, in justice to man, the subjective result 
of his transgression ought to be fully and com- 
pletely abrogated, and he ought to be brought back 
to his original estate. This is not mere sentiment, 
but the demand of strict justice. If the God-man 
literally suffers the literal penalty resting on man 
— I use the word man as standing for humanity — 
then God has certainly no more fault to find with 
man, and we are all of us pure as the angels. 



THE GOD-MAN'S MEDIATORIAL WORK. 1 17 

Of two things, however, I am fully persuaded, 
viz., that God will not deal unjustly with man, and 
that man manifestly is still suffering the penalty 
of the law as he is naturally engendered. 

What, accordingly, can the work of atonement 
mean? If Christ did not literally suffer the penalty 
of the broken law, what did He do and suffer,? I 
answer, He suffered sufficiently in body and mind 
during a number of years' sojourn on the earth, and 
particularly in the garden and on the cross, to bal- 
ance and satisfy the objective result of the Fall — 
the offended mind of God. Now it is not for man, 
the offender, to say how much the God-man is com- 
pelled to suffer to make an atonement. That be- 
longs to God, the offended. This much only may 
be ventured, and that is, that His sufferings must 
be adequate to show man that God is just, and true 
to His word; but also that He is infinite in love, in 
that He spared not His own Son, but laid on Him 
the iniquity of us all; and that by His stripes we 
are healed. In view of Christ's Person, His suffer- 
ing, of whatever character it may be, and however 
long or short a period it may extend, has infinite 
merit, and so God may well be justified to set it 
down to our credit. By the God-man's passive 
obedience, all the obstacles and hindrances are re- 



Il8 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

moved, and God is enabled to come to the rescue 
of man, to deliver him from the subjective conse- 
quences of the Fall. Hereby does this Priest offer 
himself as a sacrifice to God for the purpose of 
propitiating and reconciling Him to man. In this 
view of the atonement, I clearly see how all men 
everywhere must of necessity still be dead by na- 
ture, and, therefore, suffering the broken law in its 
subjective effect, both in time and in eternity, while 
at the same time the objective effect is covered and 
canceled. Our High Priest purchased the favor of 
God, by which it is possible for all men to be saved, 
but this sacrifice did not absolutely restore man. 
Personal salvation comes only to such as accept the 
sacrifice of Christ by faith. This subject will be 
called up again at another place. 

Intercessio7i. — The Atonement made by His ac- 
tive and passive obedience is not the only work of 
Christ. As Priest, seated at the right hand of the 
Father, the Scriptures teach that He is active in 
interceding for them whom He purchased with His 
blood. He plea'ds'His own merits in man's behalf. 
Whether this part of Christ's sacerdotal office is 
absolutely necessary for man's salvation, I know 
not. Judging from a purely philosophical stand- 
point, -I would infer that it was not. However, 



THE GOD-MAN'S MEDIATORIAL WORK. 119 

this is certain, that hereby the Redeemer shows 
His intense interest in poor fallen humanity. He 
will not be passive, as He might be justified to be, 
but earnestly active, in general for all men, and 
especially for the regenerate, through all time. L,et 
us catch the spirit and zeal of our High Priest, and 
intercede devotedly and earnestly for all our breth- 
ren, at the throne of prayer and grace, and so be- 
come the means of turning many to righteousness. 

KING. 

In the God-man's third office, we have His exer- 
cise of the regal function. In the interest of a 
better understanding of this office, the reign of 
Christ is usually divided into three parts, called 
the reign of Power, of Grace, and of Glory. 

The Kingdom of Power. — Creation is ascribed 
to the Son of God, the Second Person in the Holy 
Trinity. The Apostle John says, "All things were 
made by Him, and without Him was not anything 
made that is made." In virtue of this fact Christ 
is, properly, ruler over all things that He created, 
and His reign extends over all things visible and 
invisible, living and dead. As long as we hold 
fast to a personal, living Christ, it matters not so 
much whether we know the exact modus operandi 



120 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

of the creation; for we are thoroughly assured that 
nothing could have come into existence without 
Him, and that nothing could abide but by His 
almighty hand. I can express in one sentence my 
creed in reference to the method of creation. It is 
this: I believe, in the light of the Bible and of 
science, that some existing things, as they now are, 
have come through a gradual development or evo- 
lution, and that the major part have come imme- 
diately and directly by the fiat of God. "He spake, 
and it was done." 

In respect of the regal authority and activity of 
the King, I aver with the utmost emphasis that He 
has immediate supervision and direct control over 
all that exists, and that if He should remove His 
presence for a moment from any part of the Uni- 
verse, all would come to grief and desolation. I 
believe that the laws in nature are naught but the 
modes of the Deity's orderly reign, and that the 
forces in nature can all be resolved into one force, 
the will of God. 

The kingdom of power also implies Christ's 
dominion over animals, men and devils. While 
all these have a certain delegated realm and free- 
dom for the activity of, their respective natures, 
still there is a Supreme Ruler over them who will 



121 

never abdicate His throne. Christ's reign of power 
directs the stars in their courses, and causes the 
wrath of men and devils to praise Him. 

The Kingdom of Grace. — At another place in 
this lecture I said: "The Fall has thrown man 
out of relation and harmony with his Creator and 
Ruler. He must be restored to an estate in which 
he can make use of such rites, ceremonies and 
means of grace as God sees fit to give him for the 
perfecting of his spiritual life." This "estate" is 
Christ's kingdom of grace, the church. Justified 
by faith, the believer is transplanted from the 
"world" to the church, in which the very means 
he needs are deposited and dispensed. In this king- 
dom, "law" and "force" are transmuted into love, 
which is both "law" and "force" of another kind 
and of a more excellent character. I will not anti- 
cipate here what must be left for another place, but 
merely to say that not a part or particle is lacking 
in this kingdom, that it is philosophically apparent 
ought to be present. Provision is here made for 
man's separation from deadly influences ; for the 
nourishment and development of spiritual life ; for 
the dispensation of grace to the whole world ; and 
for the training of all the saints for the kingdom 
of glory. 



122 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

The Kingdom of Glory. — Of this a certain writer 
says: "Christ most gloriously rules the chuch tri- 
umphant in heaven, and fills it with eternal felicity, 
to the praise of the divine name and the refresh- 
ment of the saved, to which belong all the inhabi- 
tants of heaven, the good angels and redeemed 
men. They behold the Lord in His glory, as He 
shows Himself to the dead when He awakens them 
to life. This glory of the Lord begins with the 
time of His ascension to heaven, but will not be 
perfectly unfolded until, after the final judgment, 
believers also will enter into the kingdom of His 
glory to share with Him its possession. In this 
kingdom the righteous shall see the King in His 
beauty, for He is the chief among ten thousand, 
and the one altogether lovely." Hail, blessed- 
kingdom; all hail, thrice blessed King! Prophet, 
Priest and King, hi these three offices there is one 
Mediator between God and man, the God-man, 
Christ Jesus. 



LECTURE VI 



The Church, 

Matt, xvl 18. 



Matt. xvi. 18. Upon this rock will I build my church ; and 
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 



LECTURE VI. 

At this point two ways are open before us. The 
subject of man's spiritual recovery might here be 
taken up, following logically the subject of the 
preceding lecture ; or we may give attention to the 
means and instrumentalities through which his 
recovery is effected. The latter I think to be 
better suited to my purpose, and I enter, therefore, 
upon that way first 

The agency that first claims our attention, is 
the Church. This institution is variously desig- 
nated in the Old and New Testaments as the 
Church, the Kingdom of Heaven, the King- 
dom of God, the Church of God, and the Church 
of Christ. Properly considered, the Church of 
God had its beginning with the inhabitants of 
Eden. There were two persons only, it is true; 
and in a real sense these two constituted a family, 
united as they were for the purpose of introducing 
the human species, and for domestic life and enjoy- 
ment. However, inasmuch as their spiritual life 
and noblest felicity depended on union with their 

(125) 



126 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

Creator, which union was to be perpetuated 
through obedience to law and the observance and 
use of means and agencies adapted to their needs; 
and inasmuch as this man and woman were set at 
first to worship their Lord and King, and to keep 
His name uppermost in the minds of their descend- 
ants, there are here found the true marks of God's 
kingdom on earth, and the best realization of its 
divine ideal. 

In view of God's purpose to redeem the world 
by his Son the Church was not destroyed even 
after the Fall. Through all the ages before the 
advent of Christ, she remained among men. 

In the reconstruction epoch, when the God-man 
redeemed the world, the ancient Church received 
some changes. In the Old Testament dispensa- 
tion, when the people were in training for the 
Messiah, it was needful that there should be cer- 
tain rites and ceremonies adapted solely for that 
period, and therefore temporary. But when the 
last dispensation is ushered in, it becomes neces- 
sary that the imperfect give way to the perfect, 
and the temporary to the permanent. The Church 
of Christ, accordingly, is properly characterized as 
perfect, on her divine side. 

This last sentence brings me to a thought which 



THE CHURCH. 127 

is somewhat in the nature of a definition of the 
Church. To my view the Church consists of two 
parts, the divine-spiritual, and the human-mate- 
rial. In the divine part we find Christ, the founder 
and corner-stone, and the means of grace, and all 
the ceremonies and ordinances, on their spiritual 
side. In the human-material part there are all 
those who stand connected with her, together with 
the physical elements constituting the means of 
grace, and all purely human inventions, which 
may be good and useful and expedient, but nothing 
more. 

From this standpoint it is easy to see the possi- 
bility of the Church becoming corrupt, and IyUther 
was right when he spoke of the Church being in 
Babylonish captivity during a thousand years pre- 
vious to his time. At the same time, it is most 
important to note that in another and higher sense 
the Church is never anything but pure and un- 
spotted. When one speaks of an imperfect or 
corrupt church, one must always remember that 
the human-material part is meant, and never the 
divine-spiritual. When we take account of the 
many human inventions that have been added at 
different periods in different branches of the 
Church's existence, and when we think of the 



128 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

multitudes of precious souls that have thereby- 
been snared into hell, it is a great relief and joy, 
and a matter of grateful praise to God, that Christ's 
Church, as founded by Him, is very simple and un- 
encumbered, and at the same time all comprehen- 
sive in her scope and influence. 

In the preceding lecture, I remarked that the 
scope or end of Christ's " Kingdom of Grace" is 
the "training of all the saints for the Kingdom of 
Glory." 

That I hold to be true as a matter of course. To 
realize this final purpose, hovever, "all the saints" 
must be first fashioned out of " the wicked world." 
It is necessary, accordingly, that the Church should 
be a zealous propaganda. The wicked must be 
overcome by the means of grace — the Word and 
Sacraments. The devil must be cast out of them, 
they must be clothed and put in their right minds, 
and caused to sit at Jesus' feet. They must be in- 
corporated with the Church, become a part of her 
human side. This carving of saints out of such 
unsightly material, or, in other words, this con- 
quering of death and engrafting of life, is carried 
on by Christ and man in hearty co-operation. 
Thus the two parts of the Church are represented 
in the conquest of the world. In this we find the 



* THE CHURCH. 129 

personal holding the impersonal — the means of 
grace — in hand, achieving the first object of the 
Church, to wit, to bestow life upon the dead, and 
to bring them within her sacred precincts, that by 
their free and constant use of her ordinances they 
may become " perfect and thoroughly furnished 
unto every good work." This implies that all 
who are thus added to the Church, do not only try 
to grow into the full stature of the Lord them- 
selves, but also at once take their places as propa- 
gators of the Church. By this two-fold life — of 
taking in and giving out — there is "training of all 
the saints for the kingdom of glory." 

The means of grace in the Church will receive 
further and separate treatment, each by itself, in 
succeeding lectures. It therefore remains that in 
this lecture the Church must be treated mainly on 
her strictly human side. Hence what will be said 
from this onward is meant to point out some of her 
attributes and characteristics. 

ATTRIBUTES OF THE CHURCH. 

It is the purpose of her Founder and Head that 
the Church cover the whole earth. Wherever sin 
abounds it is designed that grace shall much more 
abound. In view of this fact, one of the attributes 
of the Church is Universality. 



130 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

The ancient Israelites believed that God's king- 
dom in their day was intended to include only 
themselves. Indeed, generally speaking, there 
was some truth in the belief. It is, hence, not to 
be expected that great missionary enterprises 
should be planned and executed. All this is 
changed, however, in the Christian dispensation. 
Jesus Christ manifested the true missionary spirit 
on all proper occasions. If the Scribes, Pharisees 
and others turn away from Him, He turns at once 
to the Gentiles. During His earthly life He healed 
so many "foreigners and aliens," both bodily and 
spiritually, that doubtless it were surprising to 
know the number. Christ's works of mercy were 
also accompanied by His words of glad tidings. 
He made bold to say, the offences thereby engen- 
dered notwithstanding, that the kingdom which 
He came to establish was designed to embrace 
all the nations of men. "Whosoever will may 
come." But all His words and works on this side 
of Calvary were transfigured into a brilliant 
"Great Commission" on the other side, and just 
before His ascension : ' ' Go ye therefore, and teach 
all nations, baptizing them in the name of the 
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost ; 
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I 



THE CHURCH. 131 

have commanded you, and, lo, I am with you 
alway, even unto the end of the world." Ten days 
after this, this commission is begun, in dead earn- 
est, to be carried into execution. Three thousand 
souls were added to the Church — of all tongues, 
and climes, and nations of the earth. The Apostles 
go and teach all nations, one this way and another 
that, here and there and everywhere, suffering sore 
trials and persecutions for Christ's and the King- 
dom's sake, but never fearing and never daunted. 
History records the fact that the early ages of 
Christianity were distinctively and decidedly mis- 
sionary years; and it is very likely that by the end 
of the first century the Gospel was preached liter- 
ally in every nation, and to every creature. The 
four or five succeeding centuries of controversy 
and settling of dogmas so largely superseded the 
missionary spirit that comparatively little was 
achieved. During this period the Church gained 
immensely in intension, but lost greatly in exten- 
sion. The "dark ages" followed, and Satan re- 
gained the ground which he had lost in the days 
of Christ and the Apostles. From the time of the 
Reformation dates a fresh impulse to "lengthen 
the cords and strengthen the stakes of Zion." It 
remained, however, for the present century to catch 



132 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

fully the spirit of Christ, and to lift aloft a banner 
with this ensign : ' ' Christ for the world and the 
world for Christ. ' ' ' '//z hoc signo vinces, ' ' is now the 
exulting shout of every true soldier of the Churches 
mighty host. 

It need scarcely be said that the attribute which 
we are now considering belongs to the Church by 
virtue of her essential nature. The very character 
of the Christian Church is such that she has a uni- 
versal adaptation to the infinite number and variety 
of needs of the lost world. There is no depravity 
so deep, no sin so flagrant, no vice so offensive, nor 
sorrow so bitter, nor burden so oppressive, nor any 
other distress and calamity so great, for which the 
Church does not have a pardoning, life-giving, 
cleansing, uplifting and comforting virtue, power 
and influence. Men may be polluted, crushed and 
groaning outside the Church, but inside, never. In 
her is the Great Physician, and a Balm of Gilead 
for every wound. In ages past millions have been 
touched and healed. To-day, four hundred millions 
live to call her blessed. 

Now, such essential adaptability does not exist 
in any other religion on earth. Mohammedanism 
was at the beginning propagated by the sword, and 
continues to flourish by reason of the vices which 



THE CHURCH. 1 33 

it allows to its adherents. Confucianism, Buddh- 
ism and all the other isms of the eastern empires 
hold their place rather because they destroy and 
obliterate the rational religious cravings and facul- 
ties of the soul than that they quicken and satisfy 
them. This fact is acknowledged by the most 
acute adherents of these religions, at the same time 
that they attest to the infinite superiority of Chris- 
tianity over their own. 

Another attribute of the Church is Visibility. 
The original conditions of admission were two — 
repentance and faith. All, accordingly, who made 
solemn profession of these two, were at once re- 
ceived. Naturally enough, it so happened that 
there were many false professors; nevertheless if 
their conduct was not grossly sinful and offensive 
they still held their place. All, therefore, of every 
description, who had been formally admitted to the 
Church formed an external and visible society for 
the public administering of the means of grace, and 
the preaching of the gospel, and the mutual edifi- 
cation of each other. While the Church was one 
unbroken whole, those living in any one city or 
community united in a local society. At first all 
the local churches may have been governed by 
the same rules, and worshipped in the same forms. 



134 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

Such outward and visible organization was essen- 
tial, not only for the purpose above indicated, but 
also to the end of missionary operations. This for 
two "reasons: First, in order to present a united 
and determined front to the unchristian people; 
and second, in order that they might have a 
common policy, or plan and principle of activity. 
Mere zeal without a definite plan of campaign 
would not conquer the world for the Master. 
Hence in the Acts we find that the Apostles repeat- 
edly appealed to the decision of the elders and 
brethren at Jerusalem. 

In the light of a remark I made in a previous 
paragraph, it is quite patent that although in ex- 
ternal and visible relation to the Church, not all so 
related were truly Christian. There were many 
"tares" among the "wheat." This fact suffices 
to introduce a third attribute, namely, Invisibility. 
All who belong to the visible Church are called, 
but a few only of these are chosen: these consti- 
tute the invisible Church. Not every one who 
says Lord, Iyord, will enter into the kingdom of 
glory, but he who doeth the will of the Father. 
As in the Jewish Church before Christ, so will it 
always be in the Christian Church, that many ap- 
pear like whited sepulchres, but inwardly are vile 



THE CHURCH. 135 

and full of corruption. There are many who have 
a name to live, but are dead in trespasses and sin. 
These have a name and place in the visible Church. 
On the other hand, in all periods of the Church's 
history there have been those who were in fact 
just what they were in name. Christ's kingdom 
is in them as well as around them. They believe, 
and so obey the will of God. When the King in 
His glory comes to make up His jewels, these are 
the ones that will be chosen. 

The Scripture texts that justify this attribute are 
the following: Eph. v. 27, Mark ix. 38-40, Matt. 
xv. 22, Matt. xiii. 24-30, Matt. vii. 21, John vi. 37, 
xvii. 26. 

Unity is a fourth characteristic of the Church. 

By this is not meant that external connection of 
churches which is adored and practiced by the 
Romish church, and also praised by many Protest- 
ants, but a moral unity. A great and pious theo- 
logian explains it thus: The import of this term is, 
that all who worship God according to the doctrine 
of Jesus Christ shall regard themselves as members 
of one society, and as such should exercise mutual 
brotherly love; that notwithstanding all differences 
of birth, conditions, knowledge, opinion and forms, 
they should still constitute one Church, or religious 



I36 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

society, worshipping one and the same L,ord, even 
Christ, and partaking in common of the blessings 
promised to his followers. That there should be 
such a union was the last will and testament of 
Christ — John xiii. 34, xv. 1. In order to this, it 
is not essential that there should be a full and en- 
tire agreement of opinion on every particular doc- 
trine. Christians, though differing as to their 
modes of thinking, their particular opinions and 
forms, and though divided into particular com- 
munions, ought to regard themselves as still but 
one Church, and so live together in unity of spirit. 
This is the true spirit of Christianity; it infuses 
feelings of toleration. The more one has of the 
mind of Christ, the more tolerant will he be to 
others, and especially because he knows that not 
only his Lord, but his brethren, see much in him 
which requires forbearance." 

A fifth attribute is Sanctity. 

Generally speaking the whole Church may be 
designated by this term, by reason of her superior 
and exalted station in the earth. Infinitely above 
every other society, when we take account of her 
divine-spiritual side, there is no difficulty to see 
the reason why she is sometimes called a holy 
Church, even when at the same time great corrup- 



THE CHURCH. 137 

tion is manifest among her members. Thus the 
Jews were called a holy people, at the same time 
that they were shamefully wicked. 

It is proper to say that the term u holy" in such 
a connection does not predicate moral purity, but 
merely emphasizes the fact that the institution in 
which they stand is holy and divine. Specifically 
stated, it is true that it is the very end of the 
Church to create true holiness in the hearts of all 
whom she embraces. While some resist this pur- 
pose and so will never belong but to the visible 
Church, many do yield themselves to the Church's 
grace, and are made clean and holy. In this con- 
nection the term "Sanctity" has reference to 
moral character; and all those who are holy belong 
not only to the visible but also to the invisible 
Church. 

The last attribute which I shall mention is Per- 
petuity. In the very nature of the case the Church 
must endure while the earth stands. The empire 
of Satan must be matched, and finally overcome 
by the empire of Christ. These two stand over 
against each other; and since the former is likely 
to hold a place till the consummation of all things, 
so will also the latter; the former decreasing and 
the latter increasing. This does not preclude the 



138 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

fact that the human side of the Church will suffer 
many changes from time to time. Creeds, polity, 
rites and ceremonies of to-day may possibly be 
superseded by others to-morrow; not always be- 
cause those of to-day are wrong and useless, but. 
rather because they have served their day, and 
those of to-morrow are better for to-morrow. In 
plain and simple language, the meaning of the 
foregoing is this: as the world is progressing in 
thought and intelligent activity, it may be possi- 
ble that old forms and methods of church-life will 
give way to new ones, that are abreast of the times. 
Note, also, that this reference is solely to things 
human, and not to things divine. It is plain, 
therefore, that many of the old treasures of the 
Church, which have been handed down from an- 
cient times, are not now and never will be out- 
grown and obsolete, because they have the mark 
of divinity upon them. 

It may also come to pass that where the Church 
flourishes to-day she may decline hereafter. This 
is not to be ascribed to the will of God, but to the 
perversity of men, as witness the once thriving 
condition of the Eastern church and her feeble ex- 
istence now. 

Nevertheless, in spite of all the changes and vi- 



THE CHURCH. ' 139 

cissitudes through which the Church is forced to 
pass, she will abide while time lasts, for the "gates 
of hell shall not prevail against her." When the 
end of the ages has come, having fulfilled her mis- 
sion on the earth, the Church militant will be trans- 
figured into the Church triitmphant, to be the spot- 
less and immortal bride of the King of kings and 
Lord of lords in heaven forever. 

THE MINISTRY. 

Our conception of the Church would not be com- 
plete without a brief discussion of her ministry. 

In the preceding lecture, the God-man, in his 
office as King, was said to have a Kingdom of 
Grace on earth in which He rules. That is true, 
and this makes Him the Supreme Head of the 
Church. It was He who first preached the gospel 
of the kingdom. His visible departure from 
among men called for others to take His place as 
teachers and preachers and earthly ambassadors. 
Accordingly, at the very beginning of Christ's re- 
demptive career He gathered twelve men around 
Himself, to train and discipline and prepare them 
for service in His church. These were called Apos- 
tles. Two others were afterwards chosen, one to 
take the place of the traitor, and the other to fill a 
special mission among the Gentile nations. 



140 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

It may be stated here that the Apostles of Christ 
exercised functions peculiar to themselves. They 
were to found churches in various parts of the 
world, and have the general superintendence over 
them. In order to prove the authenticity of their 
calling, Christ endowed them with the power of 
performing miracles, which they used when cir- 
cumstances demanded it. Such supernatural 
works as Christ Himself performed, they were also 
empowered to do, to impress the world that their 
calling was not of man, but of God. 

In point of fact, all the members of the Christian 
Church are kings and priests before the Lord, and 
all alike have the right to teach and rule. There 
is a sense in which it may be said that where a 
right or privilege belongs equally to all, such right 
or privilege can be exercised by none; for in the 
event of such exercise there would be endless con- 
fusion and disorder. Such would be the case in an 
absolute democracy in civil government, and such 
would likewise be the result in the Church. So 
far, there is no great dispute. At this point, how- 
ever, two ways part. One party holds that a call 
to the ministry is traced back through the line of 
the ministry to the Apostles, and from them, of 
course, to Christ; that ordination is not a mere 



THE CHURCH. 141 

human expedient, but a laying on of consecrated 
hands, through which the Head of the Church 
confers authority and power. Another class holds 
and teaches that a right call emanates from the 
Church as such, and that it is not in any proper 
sense traced to Christ and the Apostles. The fact 
is, to be sure, recognized that the Church has no 
right to call any man to her altar without proper 
mental and moral qualifications, and that these 
qualifications are the gift of Christ. In the matter 
of ordination, it is held that "ordination of a 
teacher is nothing else than a public approval and 
confirmation of his calling: to the office of teaching; 
so that thenceforward he may begin his work and 
enjoy his rights." Now, whatever others may 
hold respecting this very important subject, my 
own conviction is decidedly against the latter view. 
What has been said touching the fact that all 
alike are kings and priests before the L,ord, and all 
have a right to teach and preach, is true. The only 
question is whether those who have this natural 
right, which is one of the many blessings growing 
out of redemption, are commissioned to transfer 
their right to a certain number among them, which 
would constitute a right call, or whether the Head 
of the Church reserves the prerogative to do that for 



142 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

the Church. I am fully persuaded that the latter 
position is the correct one. The office of the min- 
istry is entirely too important and responsible to 
commit a call thereto to the Church immediately. 
I do not believe that the Church has ever been in 
an intellectual and moral position to qualify her to 
judge who shall and who shall not be set apart to 
this blessed calling. I believe that it would make 
the highest calling on earth too dependent on 
human caprice. My opinion is that it is attributa- 
ble to this erroneous notion that the people gen- 
erally, in our day, have comparatively small rever- 
ence for the ministry, and take little heed of what 
they say and urge. Shall I say it? Yes, I will: 
to this same false doctrine I ascribe the fact that 
entirely too many ministers have waived and lost 
the proper dignity which attaches to their position; 
they make themselves entirely too cheap. This 
evil is manifested in and out of the pulpit. I feel 
doubly sure that if all ministers and people would 
recognize the fact that the " Ambassador for Jesus" 
is called, not of the Church but of Christ, there 
would be unspeakable gain. 

In this view of the call, Jesus Christ holds His 
place as Head over all things in the Church. 
Through the regular ministry which originated 



THE CHURCH. 143 

with the Apostles, He calls whom he has before 
prepared by His grace in body, mind and spirit, 
inducts him into the office by the laying on of the 
hands of the presbytery, through which He imparts 
gifts and grace to qualify for the arduous and re- 
sponsible duties resting upon him. Read Paul's 
charge to Timothy. 

Called of God, the true minister holds himself 
responsible to God, and not in the least to men. 
In such a case all his words and works come with 
authority. He can say from his heart of hearts, 
"I AM hath sent me unto you," and when he 
speaks he can truly say, "Thus saith the Lord." 
Knowing in his very soul that he is directly au- 
thorized by the King to speak in His name, his 
gracious messages will have no uncertain sound, 
and his ruling and disciplining functions will not 
lack energy and stamina. 

The last sentence I have to utter on this subject, 
which satisfies the scope of my address, can be 
framed as follows: The ministry is taken out of the 
boso?n of the Church, belongs most truly to the 
Church as part and constituent, is called by the 
Lord fier se, is dedicated by a special gift of grace 
in ordination, is directly responsible to the Head of 
the Church for all conduct, and is thus literal am- 



144 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

bassador in a Kingdom, and not a mere office-bearer 
in a Republic; and hence, the terms ( ' kings ' ' and 
c ' priests, ' ' as applied to each member of the Chris- 
tian Church, have their meaning exhausted by 
referring them to each Christian's i?idividual and 
private relation to God and His Kingdom — this 
and nothing more. 



LECTURE VII. 



The Divine Revelation, 

2 Tim. iii. 16. 



2 Tim. iii. 16. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, 
and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for 
instruction in righteousness. 






LECTURE VII. 

In my 'view the necessity of a divine revelation 
is self-evident. 

By the five senses of our physical constitution 
we discover the phenomena of nature; by the Un- 
derstanding we come to a knowledge of the sub- 
stance which is beneath and behind phenomena; 
and by the Reason we discover somewhat of the 
principles, and forces, and laws beneath and be- 
hind substance. 

Placing together all that we learn in these three 
ways, I think I am safe to say that the conclusion 
of every man, in a normal state of mind, is that 
there is an All-wise and All-powerful Being, who 
is called God. This it is that gives us a clue to 
the meaning of the Scripture which says: "For 
His invisible things, even His eternal power and 
God-head since the creation of the world, are 
clearly seen, being understood by the things that 
are made." I am very sure, however, that the 
light afforded by Nature and Reason has its limita- 
tions, when unassisted by Him who created both 

and set their bounds. . 

(i47) 



148 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

The truth of the matter is, that all who are born 
under the light of a miraculous revelation, are 
really unable to speak with undoubted authority 
touching the definite character and amount of 
knowledge, science and philosophy can render us 
on purely divine and spiritual matters. The rea- 
son %r this is, from infancy up through childhood 
and youth the light of the Bible inevitably falls 
upon the mind and brings superhuman knowledge. 
The very atmosphere of Christian countries is im- 
pregnated with the knowledge of God; and if it 
were the case, as it is in a few instances, that 
parents made an effort to isolate their children 
from all scriptural teaching, that they might have 
naught but the light of Reason to guide and influ- 
ence them, it is absolutely impossible to effect their 
wish and will. Environed as we are, do what one 
will, Divine light will obtrude itself on the tablets 
of the mind. 

This truth I give as showing that what philoso- 
phers deem as a purely mental result of the 
knowledge which they possess of supernal truths, 
is not so in fact ; for imperceptibly and uncon- 
sciously to them they have all the time carried on 
their labor under the certain and positive teaching 
of the Word of God. Hence I emphasize the as- 



THE DIVINE REVELATION. 149 

sertion that we dare not boast too much of the 
knowledge we have and can have of the mind and 
will of God apart from a divine disclosure of them. 

Believing, as I do, that some knowledge of the 
character and will of God can be obtained by the 
discursive operations of the Understanding and 
the intuitions of Reason, without an immediate and 
divine revelation, the fact still remains that to the 
end of man's salvation, with all that is involved 
therein, he needs to know almost infinitely more 
than is embraced in the foregoing concession. 
Perhaps very few people have any conception of 
the character and extent of the things man ought 
to know in order to satisfy his ever-active mind 
and to perfect his life; and which is all, or nearly 
all, outside of the limitations of both "Pure" and 
"Practical" Reason (Kant). Following are the 
subjects which I think are included in this cata- 
logue, to wit: God; the creation; origin of evil; 
redemption in Christ; means of grace, and the 
Holy Ghost; new obedience; immortality of the 
soul; heaven and hell. These topics, I think, 
cover, but not more, the demands of man's mental 
and spiritual nature and the eternal plan of God in 
reference to his being and destiny. 

Now, the necessity of a God-made discovery of 



150 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

these matters is perhaps best seen by examining 
the knowledge preserved by men who were and are 
minus such discovery, and hence who have nothing 
but the much-vaunted light of Nature and Reason 
to govern them. 

In respect to God there were and are a multi- 
plicity of discordant notions. Some writers, as 
Max Miiller and others, declare that there are 
many evidences to indicate that the earliest or 
oldest belief in God was monotheistic. Granted. 
This only goes to show that the original revelation 
from God was passed down among succeeding gen- 
erations of men, and while in many respects the 
people had already become heathen — in worship 
and practical life — they still clung to this tradi- 
tional knowledge. Coming down through the 
ages, and after all traditional, but supernatural, 
knowledge was effaced and obliterated, the historic 
fact stares us in the face that there were many who 
even denied the existence of a God or gods, while 
others believed in a multiplicity of gods, and still 
others were either pantheists or deists. The his- 
torian Gibbon writes: "The philosophers dili- 
gently practiced the ceremonies of their fathers, 
devoutly frequented the temples of their gods; 
and sometimes, condescending to act a part on 



THE DIVINE REVELATION. 1 51 

the theatre of superstition, they concealed the 
sentiments of an atheist under sacerdotal robes.'* 
As might be expected, out of such discordant 
opinions grew the disgusting polytheism and idol- 
atry practiced then and now in heathen nations. 

The knowledge of one true and living God in 
three persons, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, who 
is perfect in all divine attributes, omniscient, 
omnipresent, omnipotent, love, justice arid mercy, 
is more truly foreign to their minds than to the 
new-born babe of Christian parents. 

The worship of the heathen was and is not in 
the least superior to their knowledge. Enlight- 
ened Athens, with all her great philosophers, was 
full of statues and fanes, dedicated to their numer- 
ous gods. So, also, Rome. But even in these 
cities the vilest and most diabolical worship was 
conducted. u Prostitution, with all its deformi- 
ties, was systematically annexed to various pagan 
temples, was often a source of revenue, and was, 
in some countries, compulsory upon the female 
population." Besides the number of men who 
were killed in the bloody sports and spectacles, in- 
stituted in honor of the deities, human sacrifice was 
offered to propitiate them. Boys were whipped on 
the altar of Diana, sometimes until they died. 



152 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

How many infants did the Carthaginians sacrifice 
to their implacable god, Molech ? What numbers 
of human victims, in times of public danger, did 
they immolate, to appease the resentment of the 
offended deities? But travelers and missionaries 
tell us that what was true anciently is true now — 
there is not one particle of improvement. It is 
but right to say that a few of the greatest and best 
in all the different nations and ages of the past and 
present disapproved of a great deal of the vice and 
worship prevalent among them, but in spite of all 
that, the people continued to tl perish for lack of 
knowledge. ' ' 

As we pass on to a knowledge of creation, noth- 
ing worth the name was enjoyed. The peripatet- 
ics held that the world was eternal ; Democrites 
taught that the present order of things came by a 
fortuitous concourse of atoms; the Epicureans de- 
cided that it was made by chance, and others did 
not account for it at all. Now, the significant 
thing about all these opinions is, that they ruled 
God entirely out of creation. If it be said, " Well, 
these false conceptions are not a trifle worse, and, 
indeed, not much different from those held by 
some wiseacres of the present day," I have to 
answer, No, that is true; but this does not make 



THE DIVINE REVELATION. 1 53 

the ancient philosophers any better, it only stamps 
those of our time as worse. The only difference 
between the two classes is that the ancients did 
not know better, because they had no divine rev- 
elation, and the moderns do not know better, be- 
cause they discard such revelation. Like moles, 
they love to dig in the dark. In the final analysis, 
both classes are found to be heathen; one class of 
the head, and the other of the heart. 

What has been said concerning creation is equally 
applicable to the origin of evil in the world. 
Ancient philosophers saw and lamented human 
depravity. In their speculations they always con- 
ceded that the race of man had fallen from a lofty 
position. They could not give satisfactory answers 
to when? how? why? Some of them fell on this 
theory, namely, "There are two original and eter- 
nal principles — God and matter. God is the author 
of all good ; matter the author of all evil. Man's 
soul is spirit, and hence good; man's body is matter, 
and hence evil. Depravity was, accordingly, con- 
fined to the physical nature, and, therefore, the 
sooner the soul became disengaged from the body 
the better. From this originated the doctrine of 
the transmigration of the soul. Of course, no one 
feels to chide them for this fallacy. They had, be 



154 R AYS OF LIGHT. 

it noted, the light of Nature and of Reason, and 
this is the result. With the same sources of 
knowledge the conclusion will never be more sat- 
isfactory, for neither science nor philosophy know, 
or can know, a whit about this subject. 

This notion of the origin and character of de- 
pravity did not make any room for redemption. 
It is true that Plato, and perhaps a few others, 
seem to have some faint ray of light in this direc- 
tion — just enough to make the surrounding dark- 
ness all the blacker. The light of nature afforded 
them some conception of the goodness of God, 
which a few among the wisest took as data upon 
which to base a hope of deliverance, in some way 
and at some time. But of the plan of atonement 
through which God may justify all and still con- 
tinue just Himself, they knew absolutely nothing. 
Nature and Reason both teach: " The soul that 
sinneth shall die." Mercy, repentance, ^pardon, 
substitution, etc., are entirely foreign to the tenets 
of these teachers; and this is why the most culti- 
vated philosophers could not and cannot now 
evolve a plan of salvation. Whatever hope they 
may have had was but a rope of sand. " Their 
house was left unto them desolate. ' ' 

In the light of the foregoing remarks, it is need- 



THE DIVINE REVELATION. 1 55 

less to say that nothing was known of means of 
grace, of the Holy Ghost, and of new obedience. 
Relative to the immortality of the soul there was 
great confusion of mind. The brightest lights 
among the Greeks and Romans were Aristotle, 
Socrates, Plato, Cicero and Seneca. Not one of 
these speaks with a -certain sound. It does not 
seem unlikely that Aristotle denied immortality. 
Socrates and Plato were undoubtedly very hopeful 
of life hereafter. Just before his death the former 
expressed himself as follows: "I hope I am now 
going to good men, though this I would not take 
upon me dogmatically to assert; but that I shall 
go to the gods, who are absolutely good, I affirm. 
For this reason I do not take it hard that I am to 
die, as otherwise I should do; but I am hopeful 
that there is something remaining for those who 
are dead, and that it will then be much better for 
good than for bad men. ' ' Still later he said to his 
friends: "I am going out of the world and you 
will remain in it; but which has the better, is a 
secret to all but God." Plato, the noblest of the 
disciples of Socrates, held similar opinions with 
his teacher; while others of his disciples denied 
immortality. Cicero was one of the strongest 
advocates of the soul's immortality, and yet his 



T56 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

mind wavered more or less, like that of all the rest. 
After 'advancing a number of arguments to show 
u the reason of the faith that was in him," he de- 
clared — " which of these is true, God alone knows; 
and which the more probable, is a very grave ques- 
tion." Seneca asserts that immortality was rather 
promised than proved by their great men. 

Again, and lastly, the heathen had no founda- 
tion in regard to heaven and hell. The language 
of Socrates, above quoted, is in point. Many of 
the wisest and the purest believed that these 
places existed, and that God would deliver them 
from the latter and give them a place in the 
former: I have said they believed, but I modify 
by saying, they hoped against hope. All was 
shrouded in darkness and uncertainty. They 
lived under an impenetrable cloud, that portended 
scarcely aught but destruction in death. 

I submit that Nature and Reason never will have 
a better opportunity to manifest their revealing 
power than in the golden age of Greece and Rome. 
Those great philosophers thought seriously and 
honestly on all great subjects, and therefore we 
find here the most splendid illustration of what 
may be known of divine and spiritual things, apart 
from the Bible. Now, honor bright, where is the 



THE DIVINE REVELATION. 1 57 

Christian child of five summers who could afford 
to exchange knowledge with these great ones, on 
almost all the subjects reviewed above? The 
question makes us shudder, and we cry aloud, 
nowhere, nowhere. 

Enumerating a number of topics at another 
place, I averred that some knowledge on all these 
is necessary to satisfy our ever-active mind, and to 
perfect our life. 

Having observed, also, that Nature and Reason 
cannot furnish satisfactory answers to these prob- 
lems, we have the true premises out of which to 
draw the imperative conclusion: That God will 
reveal to man all he ought to know on all matters 
otherwise "too high for him." 

Can God do this? Certainly he can. How? 
You shall see. 

THE POSSIBILITY AND METHOD OF REVELATION. 

God is All-wise and All-powerful. " Nothing is 
impossible with Him." This means of course, that 
nothing is impossible with Him that is not incon- 
sistent with His moral attributes, or with the nature 
4 and constitution of things. Neither of these is 
implied in a divine revelation to man. Created in 
the image of God pre-supposes that man's mind is 



158 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

so constituted that God can impress ideas upon 
him when and where He will. Indeed, man was 
mentally constituted to such an end; for it is 
reasonable to believe that God purposed to lead 
man upward and onward into higher and still 
higher realms of knowledge, eternally. We do 
not understand the exact modus operandi by which 
such ideas are impressed upon the mind, but 
neither do we know how we get any other knowl- 
edge. It is true that we know something of the 
faculties of the mind, and the laws of thought; but 
there is an inner holy of holies into which no 
human priest has entered, and touching which 
man's knowledge is ignorance. Yes, surely God 
can impart knowledge to His rational creatures. 

The method of revelation adopted by God was to 
inspire holy men to speak and write His thoughts 
and will. I have said, "speak" and "write," 
purposely; for while God's word to us is written, 
we do not forget that a great deal was spoken un- 
der the guidance and motions of the Holy Ghost, 
which was never committed to writing. Now all 
that we need to know, and all that future nations 
need to know, is contained in our Scripture; but ¥ 
the prophets, Jesus Christ, and the apostles deliv- 
ered many messages and performed many miracles 



THE DIVINE REVELATION. 1 59 

which we may suppose had a purely local applica- 
tion and mission. I believe all that which was of 
universal application and edification was written 
down, either directly by those to whom the revela- 
tion was originally made, or by those who were 
divinely commissioned and inspired to act in the 
capacity of author or scribe. 

This brings me to say that God's word to the 
world is not oral, but written. Why this should 
be so is manifest from a few considerations. I 
cannot do better than to quote here the arguments 
adduced by eminent writers, as found in Home's 
Introduction: 

1. Oral Tradition is so uncertain and so insecure 
a guide, that if a revelation claiming to be divine 
be not transmitted by writing, it cannot possibly 
be preserved in its purity, or serve mankind as a 
certain rule of faith and of life. In illustration of 
this remark we may observe that writing is a more 
secure method of conveyance than tradition, being 
neither so liable to involuntary mistakes, through 
weakness of memory or understanding, nor so 
subject to voluntary falsifications, suppressions, 
additions, either out of malice or design. It is 
also a method of conveyance more natural and 
human. It is nothing extraordinary for a book to 



l6o RAYS OF LIGHT. 

be transmitted pure and entire from generation to 
generation; but a traditionary doctrine, especially 
if it be of any considerable length, cannot be pre- 
served without a miracle, without the occasional 
interposition of Almighty God to renew the 
memory of it at particular intervals, or His con- 
tinual assistance and inspiration to keep it always 
alive and vigorous. It is likewise a method more 
complete and uniform, presenting itself to all at 
once and to all alike, to be compared together; 
whereas a traditionary doctrine must be communi- 
cated little by little, and without doubt communi- 
cated differently at different times by different per- 
sons. It is, moreover, a method of conveyance 
more general and diffusive. A man's writings 
reach further than his words; and surely we need 
not observe that it is the practice of mankind, 
when they would publish anything, to have it writ- 
ten or printed in a book. 

2. Experience shows that writing is a method of 
conveyance more lasting than tradition. 

It is an old and trite saying that a word perishes, 
but a letter written remains. Jesus Christ is said 
to have performed many other miracles, and to 
have done many other memorable things, besides 
those which have been committed to writing; but, 



THE DIVINE REVELATION. l6l 

observe how much more faithful record is than 
mere report — the few, comparatively speaking, 
which were written are preserved and credited, 
while the many, which were not recorded in writ- 
ing, have long since been utterly lost and forgotten. 
Everything of any consequence we desire to have 
in writing. By this, laws are promulgated; by 
this, arts and sciences are propagated; by this, 
titles and estates are secured. What do we know 
of ancient history but the little that comes down to 
us in books and writings? Tradition passes away 
like a moving cloud; but books may live as long as 
the sun and moon endure. 

3. To the preceding arguments we may add, that 
it is certainly more fair and open, more free from 
suspicion of any fraud or contrivance, to have a re- 
ligion preserved in writing, to be read and exam- 
ined by all, than to have it left only with a few, 
to be by them communicated in discourse to others, 
as no two persons express the same thing exactly 
in the same manner, nor even the same person at 
different times. 

The heathen philosophers had their exoteric 
and esoteric doctrines, as they distinguish them, 
that is, some which they generally delivered and 
some which they communicated only to a few 



1 62 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

select auditors; but the first propagators of Christi- 
tianity, knowing no such distinction, delivered the 
whole doctrine which they professed, to have re- 
ceived from the Lord. The heathen priests had 
their mysteries, which they concealed from the 
profane and vulgar; but Christianity can never be 
made too public. Most other religions also are 
committed to writing for their professors, and it 
would be a prejudice to the Christian religion if it 
did not enjoy the same advantage. The Jews had 
what they called an oral law, a well as a written 
one; and the one, as well as the other, they asserted 
to have been given by God on Mount Sinai — the 
oral to serve as a comment or explanation of the 
written law. But, in process of time, these tradi- 
tions multiplied so rapidly that the Jews found it 
necessary to keep their traditions no longer as tra- 
ditions, but committed them to writing, and they 
are now preserved in the books called the Talmud. 
So fallible is tradition, so secure is writing, even 
in the opinion of the greatest traditionists; and if 
the doctrines of religion must one time or other be 
written, it is better surely to have them written by 
inspired authors at first than by others afterwards. 
4. Lastly, the importance of the matter, the va- 
riety of the subjects, and the design of the institu- 



THE DIVINE REVELATION. 163 

tions, contained in those books which Jews and 
Christians account sacred, are additional reasons 
why they should be committed to writing. The 
matter is of no less importance than the whole will 
of God and the salvation of mankind, our duty 
here and our happiness hereafter; and if anything 
deserves to be written, do not these things deserve 
to be recorded in the most lasting characters? 
The subjects, likewise, are very various — histories 
of times past and prophecies of things to come, ora- 
tions and epistles, sublime points of faith and plain 
rules of practice, hymns and prayers and thanks- 
givings, too excellent to be forgotten, but too many 
to be remembered. The Law was for a single 
nation, but the Gospel is for the whole world. 
For a single nation it was requisite that their laws 
should be written, or to what can they appeal, and 
by what can they regulate their practice? If it was 
necessary for their law to be written, it was cer- 
tainly much more necessary for the Gospel, which 
w r as designed to be both of perpetual and universal 
obligation, a religion for all ages and all times. 

The Holy Scripture in our possession is divine. 
"Holy men wrote as they were moved by the Holy 
Ghost." U A11 Scripture is given by inspiration." 
It is however in point to say that while " all Scrip- 



164 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

ture is given by inspiration/' not all we have in 
the Bible was revealed by God, nor is every word 
the word of God, strictly speaking. The Bible, in 
fact, contains the words of Satan, of bad men, of 
good men, and of angels, as well as those of God. 
Again, it is very obvious that a very great deal in 
the Bible was known by the authors through the 
various ways in which knowledge is gained. His- 
tory, observation and experience, for 'example; 
were brought into requisition. Whatever they 
could know through ordinary intelligence, they 
were divinely guided to appropriate. Everything 
beyond this point was directly revealed. Such 
revelation was made through dreams, visions, and 
audible words, Urim and Thummim, external 
signs, and sometimes by inward suggestion. 

I wish yOu to bear in mind, however, that every 
portion of the sacred Scriptures is inspired. I do 
not believe that those who spoke and wrote were 
machines, or passive agents in the hand of the 
Spirit — that the Spirit broke down, so to speak, the 
fixed laws of thought and of language — but that He 
honored and spoke according to them. I believe 
that those who spoke and wrote did so in full 
possession of their individual peculiarities. In ex- 
pressing the "doctrines of God," they used their 



THE DIVINE REVELATION. 1 65 

own words and idioms. In writing ' c the form of 
sound words," they were indeed kept from error in 
essentials: history, doctrine, precepts, laws, etc., 
but not in non-essentials: grammar, rhetoric, style, 
etc. The former is the divine side of the Bible, 
pre-eminently; the latter the human side, pre- 
eminently. In the light of this view, accordingly, 
we can easily reconcile the little discrepancies 
which are found in the sacred pages. 

In the sixty-six books of the Bible, written by 
about forty different men during a period of some 
fifteen hundred years, we hear the Voice of God to 
the human race; there is not a faculty of the mind, 
an aspiration of the soul, a feeling of the heart in 
the realm of the spiritual, that is not met and 
satisfied by this Book. It does not only bring 
knowledge, but it is also a blessed means of grace; 
for it is the Holy Spirit's vehicle in bringing "life 
and immortality to light" in our souls. 

This Divine Revelation is oee of the three 
means of grace in the Church, and is profitable 
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruc- 
tion in righteousness, that the man of God may 
be perfected, thoroughly furnished Unto all good 
works. 

May this Word have free course, run and be 
glorified. Amen. 



1 66 RAYS OF r,IGHT. 

" A glory gilds the sacred page, 
Majestic like the sua; 
It gives a light to every age, 
It gives — but borrows none. 

"The hand that gave it still supplies 
The gracious light and heat ; 
His truths upon the nations rise, 
They rise, but never set. 

"Let everlasting thanks be Thine, 
For such a bright display, 
As makes a world of darkness shine 
With beams of heavenly day. 

"My soul rejoices to pursue 
The steps of Him I love, 
Till glory breaks upon my view 
In brighter worlds above." 



LECTURE VIII, 



Sacrament of Baptism. 

John iii. 5. 



John iii. 5. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be 
born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the king- 
dom of God. 



LECTURE VIII. 

ORIGIN. 

Holy Baptism is one of the two Sacraments, and 
one of the three means of grace in the Church. 

Christian Baptism strikes its roots into ancient 
laws and customs. It is a well-known fact that 
long before the advent of our Lord, this rite was 
practiced by many or all the heathen nations. 
With them it had no other signification than the 
mere washing away and cleansing of external im- 
purities. The Israelites, also, in obedience to a 
law on the subject, practiced this ceremony, prima- 
rily for the same purpose as that of the Gentiles, 
but also as a symbol of purification from sin, and 
an initiation into the worship of God. If we may 
credit the Talmud, we are led to believe that the 
Hebrews baptized all the proselytes, circumcised 
and uncircumcised alike. Some writers think that 
this rite of the Israelites had its origin in the act 
of Jacob, as recorded in Gen. xxxv. 2. About 
this, however, we need not to be concerned, for the 
only point to be scored here is, that baptism, after 

12 ( l6 9) 



170 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

some fashion, was observed by the nations in an- 
cient times. This fact, it is very obvious, supplies 
the ground for Christian Baptism. It is a signifi- 
cant truth that all Israel looked for the rite of bap- 
tism to be established when the Messiah should 
come. It was well known that on His appearing 
many changes would be effected; that matters in 
general would be revolutionized; and, in view of 
this belief, they seemed to expect this Sacrament 
to be practiced. 

Now when John the Baptist comes on the scene, 
preaching baptism and repentance, all the people 
flock to hear him and to be baptized. Even the 
proud and self-righteous present themselves, so that 
John is forced to say: "Generation of vipers, who 
hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come." 
From the Baptises mission and work the con- 
clusion is inevitable that if baptism had been a 
new thing — an innovation — it would have been 
utterly rejected; but being practiced before, and 
expected to accompany the new order of things, it 
was cheerfully accepted. 

In this view of things, we perceive that Holy 
Baptism, as instituted by the command of Christ, 
is an old ceremony on its external and material 
side, but a new Sacrament on its spiritual side, in 



SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM. 171 

meaning, scope and effect. In this, as everywhere 
else, we observe how the new dispensation was 
rooted and grounded in the old. 

In answer to the question, What is the difference 
between John's baptism and that of Christ? I 
may venture to say, None. This answer is justified 
by the fact that John exhorted all who applied for 
baptism to repent of their sins, and believe on the 
expected Messiah. When Christ came forward to 
claim that title, John made haste to direct all who 
w 7 ere, or w 7 ere about to be, baptized, to Christ, and 
thereby completed his mission as forerunner; and 
therein did their baptism find its real significance 
and effect. 

Another justification lies in the fact that the 
early Christian Church regarded the two baptisms 
as the same. All the disciples of John who pro- 
fessed faith in Christ as the Messiah, were not 
baptized the second time. The baptism of John 
sufficed. Those only who did not at first thus ac- 
knowledge Christ, but received the baptism of John 
in an entirely different sense, were afterwards rebap- 
tized with the baptism of Christ. History teaches 
that many false disciples of John continued to bap- 
tize into the coming Messiah, rejecting Christ as the 
Messiah ; so that afterward when any such accepted 
Christ, they were properly rebaptized. 



172 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

In the light of these historic facts, the only in- 
telligent conclusion is, that the two rites were 
practically identical. 

CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 

Proceeding now to consider Christian Baptism, 
I desire to somewhat rapidly sketch some of its 
distinctive features. 

ffirst comes the command by Christ that it shall 
be a universal Sacrament. 

The disciples were commanded to go forth every- 
where to make disciples and to baptize. "Go ye 
and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them 
in the name of the Father and of the Son and of 
the Holy Ghost." "Preach the gospel to every 
creature," "He that believeth and is baptized 
shall be saved." This great commission couples 
salvation and baptism. The context shows, it is 
true, that such connection is not absolute, but elec- 
tive. In any case where this Sacrament cannot 
possibly be administered, we may well believe 
that God can save without it; but in all ordinary 
circumstances the command and the observance 
is absolute. The Church marches forward to the 
conquest of all nations with the Bible, the Holy 
Baptism and the Holy Supper in her right hand. 



SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM. 1 73 

These are all the weapons she carries, but with 
these she is certain of complete triumph. 

Baptism must be adiyiinistered iu the name of the 
Holy Trinity. 

This is at once a confession of the triune God, 
Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and of the fact that 
the three Persons in the Godhead are equally in- 
terested and engaged in our salvation. "God so 
loved the world that He gave His only begotten 
Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not 
perish, but have eternal life." "If any man sin, 
we have an advocate with the Father, even Jesus 
Christ the righteous, who hath made propitiation 
for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the 
whole world." "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, 
except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, 
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Many 
other texts bring out the same truth. 

The persons authorized to administer this Sacra- 
ment are the ordained ministers of the Church. 

By virtue of their office in the kingdom of Christ, 
it is incumbent on them to act for the 'King in 
placing His seal upon all those who are becoming 
His subjects. There are tfiose who maintain that 
in extraordinary circumstances a layman or a 
parent may properly administer this means of 



174 RA ^S OF LIGHT. 

grace. This I consider as doubtful. While it 
must be emphasized that Baptism in the hand of 
the minister is not used like a wand in the mam- 
cian's hand to effect a magic phenomenon, neverthe- 
less, our IyOrd ordains that His ambassadors shall be 
the ministers of this mystery, and that ends all 
controversy. 

The substance of Baptism is both material and 
divine. 

The material element is water, the divine, 
Christ's word and promise. "Baptism is not mere 
water, but it is that water which is connected with 
God's word, which says: 'Go ye into all the world 
and preach the Gospel to every creature: he that 
believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that 
believeth not shall be damned.' " If baptism is not 
mere water, neither is it mere word and promise. 
Just as the water must be connected with God's 
word, so also must the word be connected with the 
water. In other words, there is here a mutual con- 
nection and union. The reason why this matter 
must be emphasized is this: there are those who 
think so lightly and superficially on this subject 
that they are not backward to declare that instead 
of water, another element may be used, or even no 
material element at all — that the bare baptismal for- 



SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM. 1 75 

mula is sufficient. I do not believe this. I have all 
confidence in the power of God's word to effect a 
new life in the soul, but I insist that the repetition 
of the formula of baptism, without water, is not 
baptism. Our Lord united the two — water and the 
word — and "what God hath joined together, let not 
man put asunder." We may not know all the rea- 
sons why the material side of the sacrament is 
water, but some of the reasons seem to be obvious. 
In the first place, man is so constituted that he 
loves to deal with the concrete and tangible. 
Truth presented in the abstract can, of course, be 
understood and accepted; but if that truth can also 
be shown in the concrete, it makes a more vivid, 
and, frequently, a more intelligent impression upon 
the persons for whom it is intended. It is a well- 
established fact that things that are seen and heard 
and felt, etc., are never forgot, while those that are 
abstractly conceived are soon in oblivion. This is 
especially true of the young and unlearned. 

In the light of the above, there is a striking and 
beautiful propriety in Holy Baptism. It is a poem 
in water. It is an object lesson. The abstract 
truths of Regeneration and Sanctification are pre- 
sented to man in material forms. Just as water 
applied to the body cleanses and purifies it, so does 



176 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

the Holy Spirit regenerate and sanctify the soul. 
As no other element is used for common washings 
and lustrations, so may there be no other element 
substituted for water in baptism. Furthermore, 
lust as certainly as the material element is present 
in the sacrament, so certainly is the divine element 
present, the Holy Ghost. It is right here that 
endless comfort is afforded to those who receive 
this sacrament, as well as to parents and sponsors 
who hereby dedicate their children and wards to 
God. They have the unceasing assurance that by 
virtue of their baptism the Spirit is vouchsafed to 
them, who will, if unresisted, perfect God's work 
within them. 

But while baptism gives assurance of the gift of 
the Holy Ghost, to cleanse and purify the soul, it 
is also a perpetual reminder of the duty of the per- 
son baptized. Luther's catechism fitly teaches: 
"Water baptism signifies that the old man should 
be drowned and destroyed by daily sorrow and 
repentance, and that a new man should daily arise 
that shall dwell in the presence of God." This 
symbolical teaching of baptism doubtless finds its 
meaning chiefly in immersion, but it does show 
forth very strikingly what the subject of baptism 
must do. 



SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM. 1 77 

From this last paragraph it must by no means 
be understood that I lay the main stress on the 
symbolical signification of the subject under con- 
sideration. This is precisely what all anabaptists 
do, but I am not their mouth-piece. / believe and 
declare that it must be regarded as a means of 
grace, first, last and all the time. In it the tri- 
une God conveys grace to the heart, and also 
causes it "to stand as a perpetual sign and seal of 
that grace. 

Touching the mode, two may be mentioned, affu- 
sion and immersion. Either and both, of these 
modes are perfectly valid. The efficacy of this 
sacrament does not at all depend on the mode 01 
administration, but on the substance. The latter 
belongs to the essential, the former to the adia- 
phora. Those who practice affusion, proceed on 
the ground of expedience in administration ana 
means of grace as to substance ; while those who 
immerse, proceed on the ground of essentiality of 
mode in administration, and symbolism as to sub- 
stance. The former is a striking evidence of the 
magnification of the substance and end of baptism, 
while the latter is just as striking for magnifying 
the mere ceremony or human adjunct. But while 
men may pin their faith to mode, God, thanks be 



170 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

to His name, is willing to fulfill the engagement 
into which He enters thereby. 

SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM. 

The subjects of baptism are adults and children. 

No one disputes the first mentioned class. Ro- 
manists and Protestants, anabaptists and pedo- 
baptists, alike agree at this point. 

Relative to the second class, there is disagree- 
ment now and for a long time past. Why there 
should be it is very hard to understand; but it must 
be owing, not to lack of conscientiousness, but to 
stubborn prejudice born of partisan training, and 
in some instances, of mental obtuseness. That in- 
fants are proper subjects for this sacrament is so 
obvious that it ought to commend itself to every 
Christian. 

Allow me to mention some of the arguments 
upon which the foregoing assertion is based. 

First. Children belonged to the Old Testament 
dispensation. 

At Gen. xvii. 9-14, we have the following posi- 
tive command: "And God said unto Abraham, 
thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and 
thy seed after thee in their generations. This is 
my covenant which ye shall keep between me and 



SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM. 1 79 

thee and thy seed after thee: Every man child 
among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall 
circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall 
be a token of the covenant betwixt me and 
you." This command stipulates and recognizes 
their relation to the Church. Hereby they are 
brought into covenant relation with God, by which 
covenant God conferred on the children equal 
blessings with the adults. That the rite of cir- 
cumcision was observed throughout the entire Old 
Testament Church to the time of Christ is, of 
course, admitted by all. Christ Himself, being 
born under the law, was circumcised on the eighth 
day, being called Jesus. 

Now it cannot be said that this was all true 
touching the old dispensation, but that under the 
Gospel dispensation matters have taken another 
turn, for the reason that a new element or con- 
dition has been introduced into it, viz., faith. 
This is simply not true, for although the old dis- 
pensation was primarily of law — to lead them to 
Christ — nevertheless salvation was not by the ful- 
filling of the law, but by faith in the promised 
Messiah. Every foreshadowing and promise of 
this Saviour was the Gospel from which it is clear 
that it had its beginning, not with the advent of 



l8o RAYS OF LIGHT. 

Christ, but literally with the very first announce- 
ment and promise of His advent, immediately after 
the Fall. Every succeeding covenant which God 
made with man was therefore a proclamation of the 
Gospel. Now this fact is most strikingly proved 
by words from the mouth of the Apostle Paul 
(Gal. iii. 6, vii. 8), where he declares that God's 
covenant with Abraham, the very one embracing 
the circumcision of all the male children, was the 
Gospel, and therefore involved the element of faith. 
Hear him: u Bven as Abraham believed God, and 
it was accounted unto him for righteousness. 
Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, 
the same are the children of Abraham. And the 
Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the 
heathen through faith, preached before the Gospel 
to Abraham, saying, In thee shallall the nations 
of the earth be blessed." When Christ came, in 
view of whom the covenant with Abraham was 
made and which constituted the Gospel to Abra- 
ham, did He fulfill or abrogate the covenant? This 
question can surely have but one answer, and that 
is, that He fulfilled it. Otherwise He came to 
abrogate the Gospel, and that would mean that He 
destroyed what it was the purpose of God He should 
confirm and establish. It means, therefore, that 



SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM. l8l 

we are to-day without the Gospel. All this is 
fallacious on its very face. But if He came to 
fulfill the Old Covenant or Gospel, then He neces- 
sarily and absolutely continued the same parties to 
that Covenant, God on the one side, and all the 
nations of the earth, adults and children, on the 
other. For remember, the promise was to Abraham 
and his seed, and to all who became the spiritual 
children of Abraham. 

It is self-evident that if God desires to change the 
rite and ceremony of admission into this covenant 
at any time, He is at liberty to do so, for this does 
not affect the covenant itself. At a certain period 
of the world's history, God's wisdom may see that 
this initiatory rite may be so changed that it will 
teach, symbolically, new ideas and conceptions. 
Christian baptism is thus made to take the place, 
as a rite of initiation and means of grace, of cir- 
cumcision in the old dispensation. 

In concluding this part of the subject I cannot 
do better than to quote the words of Dr. N. L,. 
Rice: u Since the children of believers were put 
into the Church by the positive law of God, they 
can be put out only by the positive law of God. In- 
ference will not answer the purpose. You cannot 
infer men out of their political rights. Men do not 



1 82 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

reason so infallibly that we may safely trust our 
rights and privileges to their deductions and infer- 
ences. I enjoy the rights of a citizen of these 
United States by the plain letter of the constitu- 
tion. If you wish to deprive me of these rights, 
you must prove that the constitution has been so 
altered as to exclude me. You must, to deprive 
me of any political rights, find law as positive, and 
of as high authority, as that which originally con- 
ferred them. This principle holds equally good 
in ecclesiastical matters. If I prove that God put 
certain persons into his Church, you cannot exclude 
them unless you can point to the law authorizing 
you to do so. God did put the children of believ- » 
ers into His Church by clear and positive command, 
and you cannot exclude them except by law equally 
clear and positive. The law of command includ- 
ing children in His Church is plain and undeni- 
able, but I challenge any one to show a law or com- 
mand excluding them, coming either from Christ 
or the Apostles. All this shows most conclusively 
that infant Church membership spreads its roots 
into the love and tender mercy of God to children, 
as anciently displayed; and since God is unchange- 
able, He cannot turn against our children in these 
modern days!" 



SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM. 183 

Secojid. Children have a right to baptism by the 
invitation of Christ. 

Certain mothers brought their children to Christ 
that He should put His hands on them and bless 
them. The disciples rebuked these mothers, but 
Christ was much displeased, and said: " Let little 
children come unto me, and forbid them not, for of 
such is the kingdom of God." Now notice three 
things. First, the phrase "kingdom of God" is 
admitted on all sides to mean God's kingdom and 
reign on earth — the Church. " For of such is the 
kingdom of God," hence, is equivalent to saying, 
for of such is the Church. This is understood as 
meaning, these children have fitness for a place in 
the Church, and, therefore, do not push them away 
from Me; let them come, I will bless them. Sec- 
ondly, baptism is the divinely authorized right of 
initiation into the Church. "Verily, verily, I say 
unto thee, except a man be born of water and of 
the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." 
Placing side by side the fact that baptism is the 
door to the Church and the Saviour's declaration 
that "of such is the kingdom of God," there can 
simply be no mistaking the will of the Master rel- 
ative to the relation of children- to the Church and 
to baptism. 



184 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

Third, Children are included in the many family 
baptisms recorded in the New Testament. 

I mention the case of " Cornelius's house," Acts 
x. In the 16th chapter of Acts, there is mention 
made of * ' I^ydia and her household. ' ' In this same 
chapter, the baptism of the ( ' Philippian jailer and 
his house" is recorded. The baptism of "Crispus 
and his house" is narrated in Acts xviii. In 1 
Cor. i. 16 Paul writes that he ''baptized the house- 
hold of Stephanas." 

Surely, if the terms "house" and "household" 
mean anything, they mean the families of the per- 
sons indicated in the record. I do not think that 
this has ever been denied. This signifies the in- 
clusion of children. But opposers of infant bap- 
tism object by declaring that all the members of 
these families were adults. The drowning man 
grasps at a straw, and just as senseless and desper- 
ate are many people in their interpretation of the 
Scriptures — especially if they have a lame theory 
to defend. If the sacred record made mention of 
but a single household baptism, there would be 
room for the position that all the members thereof 
were adults; but since a number of families are 
named, that attitude becomes untenable. To say 
the very least, it would be marvelous if none of 



SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM. 1 85 

these households embraced youths and children, 
seeing that such is always the case in the common 
course of family life where there are a number of 
members. It is not without point to remark that 
it is by no means likely that we have a record of 
more than a small fraction of the household bap- 
tisms performed by the disciples. Probably there 
were hundreds of such; but because it w T ould not 
be for our spiritual edification to have them nar- 
rated, they were passed over. Now this consider- 
ation confirms the pedo-baptist position, render- 
ing it simply impregnable. I say it frankly, and 
after due thought, that it would be just as easy for 
me to oppose the Sacrament of Christian baptism, 
as founded in the Scriptures, as to oppose infant 
baptism, seeing that it is equally Scriptural. 

Fourth. The voice of history pleads emphatically 
for infant baptism. 

Every student of history will, of course, not deny 
that this has been the practice for at least fifteen 
centuries. Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli, during 
the Reformation days, all practiced it. So have 
the great majority of all the Protestant denomina- 
tions: the Lutheran, the Mother Church of all 
Protestant daughters, w T ith her forty-five millions 
of members; the Church of England, the Presby- 

13 c 



1 86 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

terian, the Methodist, with each their millions; to- 
gether with all the other branches of the Church 
of Christ, with their additional millions. The 
Baptist species alone, embracing not more than 
an insignificant fraction of Christendom, raises a 
dissenting voice — one defective note in the glorious 
diapason. 

For a thousand years before the Reformation, 
infant baptism was almost the universal practice. 
But the cry goes up, "Yes, that is true, but then 
the Church was corrupt — she had departed from 
the ' good old ways' of the Church Fathers — things 
were different then." Let us see. 

The greatest defender of the faith at the close of 
the fourth century was Augustine. His acute and 
learned opponent was Pelagius. The latter was 
born about the middle of the fourth century, and 
besides ample natural endowment of mind, he was 
well informed, the result, very largely, of travels 
and observations. Pelagius traversed through all 
the various countries of Christendom. Now, the 
heresies which he put forth so vigorously but hon- 
estly, biased him against the doctrine of infant 
baptism, not in heart, perhaps, but in mind; for it 
stood stoutly in the way of some of his theological 
opinions. In view of this fact his testimony is 



SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM. 187. 

doubly strong. What is that testimony? This, 
viz., "I have never heard of even any impious 
heretics who claim that infants should not be bap- 
tized." Again, "Who can be so impious as to 
deny baptism to infants?" Let this witness, 
among the many who might be adduced, suffice 
for this period. The great and pious Church 
father, Cyprian, born about the year two hundred, 
and bishop of the city of Carthage, in answer to 
Fidns as to whether children ought to be baptized 
before they were eight days old, declares as follows, 
as the mouthpiece of a council that was held at 
Carthage to deliberate upon this very subject: 
" Cyprian, and the rest of the bishops who were 
present in the Council, sixty-six in number, to 
Fidus our brother. As to the case of infants: 
'Whereas you believe they ought not to be baptized 
inside of two or three days after they are born, and 
that the rule of circumcision is to be observed, 
that no one should be baptized before the eighth 
day after his birth; we are all of us of a different 
opinion. As to your opinion, no one was of your 
mind, but we all hold that the mercy and grace of 
God — through baptism — should not be withheld 
from any one that is born. This, therefore, dear 
brother, was our conclusion in the Council, that 



188 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

we ought not to hinder any person from baptism 
and the grace of God, whose mercy and kindness 
is extended to all of us." This deliverance was 
made about one hundred and fifty years after the 
death of Saint John, and has, hence, singular signi- 
ficance. About eighty-five years after the death of 
the Apostle above mentioned, Origen saw the light 
of day. This man was a prince among human 
kind in his day. It is said that if the New Testa- 
ment should be lost, it could be reproduced from 
the writings of this Father, so extensive and 
thorough are his quotations from the Scriptures. 
Let Origen speak on the subject in hand: "Ac- 
cording to the usage of the Church, baptism is 
given even to infants, when if there were nothing 
in infants that need forgiveness and mercy, the 
grace of baptism would not seem to be necessary." 
Again, "infants are baptized for the remission of 
sins." Again, "for this cause it was that the 
Church received an order from the apostles to give 
baptism to infants." 

Only one more witness, and the case will rest. 
Justin Martyr was born in the last quarter of the 
first century. If he did not himself see the apostle 
John, he was at least a disciple of those who were 
disciples of John. What does he say? Of those 



SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM. 189 

who were members of the Christian Church he 
writes: "A part of them were sixty or seventy 
years old, who were made disciples of Christ from 
their infancy. Baptism, without controversy, is 
now and always has been the initiatory rite into 
discipleship." The only rational inference, accord- 
ingly, is that Justin Martyr has reference here to 
Christian baptism. This, indeed, is the only sense 
in which the words "disciple" and "infancy" 
square: any other meaning causes a contradic- 
tion in terms. 

I have only now to say that under the tutorship 
of the Church and apostolic Fathers above named, 
one must be strikingly obtuse and stubborn to re- 
ject the unanimous verdict in favor of infant bap- 
tism. The chorus is full-voiced and all the parts 
harmonize on this subject. Who will resist the in- 
evitable? Verily, infant baptism has come down 
to tcs with the sign and seal of history and of the 
Scriptures upon it, and so it may zvell be, as it is, 
the door to the Church for old and young alike. 

Leaving the topic of "subjects of baptism," I 
proceed to take up the last in this lecture, to wit, 

THE BENEFITS OF BAPTISM. 

I shall limit myself to a very few words. Christ 



190 RAYS OF UGHT. 

said to Nicodemus, "Except a man be born of 
water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the 
kingdom of God." Paul declares: "Baptism is 
the laver of regeneration and the renewing of the 
Holy Ghost" 

Since baptism is the only door to the Church, it 
is very obvious that this Sacrament confers an un~ 
speakable benefit in admitting the subject to her 
blessings and her privileges. Ordinarily, there is 
no salvation apart from her sacred precincts, within 
which are all the saving means of grace. To ob- 
tain access, therefore, to these means, by which 
man comes into fellowship with saints and with 
God, is a blessing as great as heaven. But this is 
only one benefit. Before sinful man comes into 
such intimate relationship with his God and 
Father, there must be at least the beginning of a 
new life. "Ye must be born again." " Born of 
the Spirit." "That which is born of the flesh is 
flesh, but that which is born of the Spirit is 
spirit." 

The new birth takes place through the medium of 
either of two means, the Holy Scriptures or Bap- 
tism. 

The first is the authorized means for adults; the 
latter for infants. Both means are the vehicle of 



SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM. 191 

the Holy Ghost, and it is the Holy Ghost who cre- 
ates anew. In the case of adults, intelligence and 
voluntary choice are implied, and hence the Scrip- 
tures, offering life or death, are the appropriate in- 
strument of the Spirit. With them regeneration 
is demanded before baptism is permitted. To them, 
whatever else it may be, baptism is a sign and 
seal of what has already taken place through the 
Word, besides formally introducing them to the 
higher mysteries of godliness. 

In the case of infants, knowledge and choice are 
not existent; but, needing a new heart as well as 
adults, holy baptism has been instituted as the 
means for doing what the written Scriptures do in 
the case of adults. Personally, I do not believe 
that regeneration is identical in infants and adults. 
The former have nothing but natural depravity; 
or, as I prefer, spiritual death. The latter are also 
guilty of actual sin, or spiritual death intensified 
by personal act. The former have inherited their 
condition, and which is nothing but simple death. 
The latter are guilty of voluntarily developing this 
simple death into deeper death, and therefore to 
this aggravated death, which is totally subjective, 
there is superadded sin against God. In my view 
there is well-nigh and infinite distance between the 



192 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

simple spiritual death of the babe and the aggra- 
vated condition of the willing sinner. Accordingly, 
the Spirit's mission in the case of the babe is noth- 
ing more than to bring spiritual life — which I shall 
explain further at another place — and that without 
the babe's knowledge and consent, inasmuch as 
knowledge and consent were not involved in its 
death. This God bestows upon the infant purely 
for Christ's sake. The adult having literally 
sinned, and under the light of knowledge and by 
personal choice, the Spirit's mission is to regener- 
ate him with his knowledge and consent. 

In this view of things the long drawn-out discus- 
sion concerning the necessity of faith for a valid 
and efficacious reception of baptism is all at the 
end of the word — palaver. Such discussion does 
not recognize a distinction between things that 
differ; it indicates a signal confusion of ideas. 

More of this under the subject of "Regenera- 
tion." 

From all that has been said in this lecture rela- 
tive to the Sacrament of Baptism, the inevitable 
conclusion forces itself upon us that it is a most 
divine and heavenly institution, and that the only 
alternative open to man is to use and appropriate 
it, to his endless weal and comfort. 



LECTURE IX, 



The Sacrament of the Altar. 

i Cor. x. 16. 



i Cor. x. 16. The bread which we break, is it not the com- 
munion of the body of Christ ? The cup of blessing which we 
bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ ? 



LECTURE IX. 

The second Sacrament, and the third means of 
grace is variously called the Lord's Supper, the 
Eucharist, the Holy Communion, and, by the Re- 
formers, the Sacrament of the Altar. Discussion 
has been rife over the true intent and meaning of 
the words of the institution, all Protestants agree- 
ing as against Romanists, but disagreeing among 
themselves. 

In this Sacrament, as in that of Baptism, there 
are two parts — the material and the divine. The 
material is bread and wine; the divine, the body 
and blood of Christ. These two parts are recip- 
rocally united to each other in the sacrament; 
neither is present without the other in every prop- 
erly consecrated and administered communion. 
This is a great mystery, but it is according to the 
will of God as taught in Holy Writ. 

As Baptism takes the place of Circumcision, so, 
also, does the Holy Supper take the place of the 
Passover. As the Sacrificial lamb was eaten by 

(195) 



196 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

those in the Old Testament Dispensation at the 
Passover Feast, so do those in the New Dispensa- 
tion at the Communion Feast partake of the body 
and blood of Christ, the Lamb of God. Thus 
Baptism and the Lord's Supper alike have their 
roots and foundations in the old economy. After 
these preliminary remarks, I call your attention to 
the Scriptural meaning and purport of the words 
of the institution. 

MEANING AND PURPORT. 

Like every other matter, this blessed means of 
grace was covered over by a heap of Romish error 
at and before the Reformation era. I will not stop 
to rehearse all the errors and corruptions, but suf- 
fice it to say that the one that claims our attention 
in this connection is that of Transubstantiation. 
Rome taught that at the time of the consecration 
of the elements — bread and wine — the bread is 
transmuted into the body of Christ, and the wine 
into the blood of Christ. These material elements 
are no longer such in essence, but only in form. 
Eating and drinking, therefore, at the Sacramental 
Table, meant nothing short of the oral mastication 
and deglutition of the body and blood of Christ. 

The Reformers unite in declaring this theory a 



THE SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR. 197 

manifest error, unauthorized by Scripture, and un- 
supported by the senses and by reason. Of course, 
the question is not whether such a thing were pos- 
sible with God, but whether the words of the insti- 
tution justify the theory, as also sound reason and 
the senses. 

The answer is, they do not. The words of the 
institution plainly declare the bread and wine to be 
still bread and wine after the consecration. listen: 
"As oft as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye 
do show the Lord's death till He come." In this 
there is not one jot or tittle to even intimate that a 
change is effected in the elements. On the other 
hand, these words clearly teach the unchanged and 
natural constitution of them. 

To the above may be added the testimony of the 
senses, which, it is true, are not always to be de- 
pended on, especially in their testimony touching 
spiritual things; nevertheless, as circumstantial 
witnesses, they ought to be admitted into court. 
There are four of these testifying concerning the 
subject in hand. They are sight, smell, taste and 
touch. These are unanimous in affirming that 
the bread and wine in the Supper retain their nat- 
ural and original phenomena; and upon such data, 
the reason decides that the substance or essence 



I98 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

producing the phenomena must be natural and 
original — that is, that the material elements are 
literally bread and wine. Place this testimony by 
the side of the Word, and the conclusion is irrever- 
sible that no transubstantiation has occurred, and 
that the whole thing is a fabrication. 

Another error is covered by the terms "Con- 
substantiation, " u Impanation, " u Subpanation. ' ' 
These words are meant to express the notion that 
the body and blood of Christ are somehow locally 
included in the bread and wine, and partaken by 
the communicants. Protestants have charged each 
other with holding this view; especially has the 
Lutheran Church been thus charged. The Luth- 
eran Church, however, boldly and persistently re- 
pels this stigma upon her fair name, and rightfully 
challenges the whole theological world to prove a 
single instance where any of her leaders have ever 
taught such doctrines. She does hold to the real 
presence of the Lord in the Supper, but not by 
local inclusion. She repudiates every term which 
is designed to convey such an idea. 

Another misinterpretation of the words of the 
institution by Christ, is the doctrine of the merely 
symbolical import of the Communion. This view 
is sometimes called the Emblematic. 



THE SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR. 199 

This doctrine entirely discards the presence of 
the body and blood of Christ, and hence holds that 
the visible elements are nothing but emblems or 
symbols of the absent Christ. That as a rite it is 
only commemorative, and not a distinctive means 
of grace. Christ is received in the Supper, but 
only as He is received by the hearing and believ- 
ing of the Word under ordinary circumstances. 
This view is based on the position that the verb 
"is" in the institution means to "signify," "re- 
presents" or "symbolizes" the "body" and 
"blood" there distributed and received — and 
herein lies the fallacy. 

Again, the view is held by a large body of 
Christians that the Eucharist is truly much more 
than a commemorative ceremony; that it is a 
precious Sacrament and means of grace; that 
the glorified body and blood of Christ are enjoyed 
by the participant. This body and blood being 
locally present in heaven, cannot be also in the 
Sacrament at the same time. Therefore the only 
mode of reception of Christ, and feeding upon 
Him, is by faith. The body and blood of Christ 
are not presented and received in, with or under 
the bread and wine, but these physical elements 
merely excite faith in the Saviour, by which He is 



200 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

appropriated, and incorporated into the communi- 
cant's life. 

Now concerning the last two views, which are 
in many respects much more acceptable to most 
minds than the preceding ones, the question may 
well be asked, What particular benefit does the 
Ivord's Supper confer that the Christian does not 
already enjoy, apart from it? Or, what distinctive 
significance does this Sacrament have ? 

By permission of the author, Dr. J. G. Morris, I 
avail myself of a lengthy extract from a very 
learned and exhaustive article on this subject, in 
the Lutheran Quarterly for April, 1883. 

He writes: 

"Nor do we believe that the presence of Christ 
consists in a mere figurative representation, that 
is, that the bread only represents or signifies His 
body and that the wine only represents or signifies 
his blood. 

"This view is opposed to the language of the 
institutiou. It does not say, Take, eat, this repre- 
sents my body or is a sign of it (and so of the 
wine), but it speaks of an actual, real and true 
existence: 'This is my body;' 'this is my blood;' 
that which only represents or signifies a thing, is 
not the thing itself. Here Christ is speaking of 



THE SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR. 201 

His body that was given for us, and of His blood 
that was shed for us, so that His language cannot 
be understood of a mere sign or of a figurative 
body and blood. 

"This view is also contrary to the nature and 
character of the New Testament. True, in the 
Old Testament, the sacraments and sacrifices were 
"shadows and images" (signs) of "good things to 
come," Heb. x. i; Col. ii. 17, but in the New 
Testament is the substance itself. Thus in the 
Old Testament, the Paschal lamb represented, 
signified, prefigured Christ, but in the New, 
Christ is really the Paschal Lamb, that was slain 
for our sins, 1 Cor. v. 7. If then, in the Holy 
Supper, these were nothing more than mere ex- 
ternal signs of a covenant, there would be no 
difference between the Old and New Testaments, 
which, however, the Scriptures so distinctly speci- 
fied. There would also be no difference between 
the Paschal lamb and the Holy Supper, whereas 
our Lord instituted it only after partaking of the 
Paschal lamb and thereby the latter was abolished 
("finished") as a Sacrament of the Old Testa- 
ment. On the contrary, in the Holy Supper as a 
Sacrament of the New Testament, necessarily 
something more is exhibited than a mere sign, 
14 



202 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

otherwise they would be the same thing, for we 
could not understand for what purpose Christ 
ordained and did not perpetuate that of the Paschal 
lamb. Of the latter, it could properly be said, 
This represents my body, but of the New Testa- 
ment Sacrament it is said, This is my body. In- 
deed, the signs of the Old Testament, as such, 
would have been more expressive than those of the 
New. The slaying of the lamb "in the evening," 
the shedding of its blood, the preparation of it 
whole without a bone being broken, and the eat- 
ing of it, accompanied with certain ceremonies, 
would have more impressively set forth the suffer- 
ings and death of Christ, than the bread and wine 
in the Holy Supper. 

"If we interpret the words of Christ 'My body' 
to mean symbol of My body, then it follows that not 
His body, nor His blood, 'was given for us,' but 
a symbol of His body and blood, and hence we have 
a symbolical, and not a real atonement; in other 
words, Christ's death is no improvement of, or ad- 
vance beyond, the sacrament of the Paschal lamb. 

" Zwingli and his followers maintain that the 
word 'is' means represents, signifies, 'is a symbol 
of,' but learned men tell us that no translations of 
the Bible, ancient or modern, with any pretension 



THE SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR. 203 

to scholarly character, so render the word. Xo 
man whose authority is worth anything has ever 
dared to insert into the text of his translation, this 
is a symbol of his body. No impartial dictionary 
of the Greek assigns such a meaning to the word, 
except that of the rationalist, Schleusner, and that 
of the Zwinglian, Parkhurst, and these evidently 
had the design of promoting the false doctrine.* 
No good dictionary of the English, Hebrew, or, we 
may say, of any other language, gives such a mean- 
ing corresponding to the English verb 'to be,' or 
to the Greek equivalent verb. 

"Some passages have been cited to prove that 
'is 1 may mean 'is a symbol of,' for example, I am 
the door; I am the vine, ye are the branches; I am 
the bread of life. Thus Christ would say, 'I am the 
symbol of a door; I am the symbol of a vine; I am 
the symbol of bread,' which is absurd. 

"In 1 Cor. x. 14, we have, 'That Rock was 
Christ;' the meaning of which is, that the real, 

* Since writing the above, a Friend learned in Greek has in- 
formed me that the last edition of Liddell-Scott accords indeed 
to este, the meaning "signify," "import," but in an entirely- 
different sense from "being an emblem or S} T mbol of." The 
distinction may be readily seen from the illustration given, 
which, translated, is: "To say is to speak," i. e., signifies to 
speak, but not as a symbol or emblem of speaking. 



204 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

spiritual rock that went with the people was the 
manifested Jehovah, that is, the Second Person of 
the Trinity, Christ himself, in His pre-existent 
state. So, when it is said that Christ is the door, 
the vine, the bread, the foundation, the corner- 
stone, etc., the resolution of the expression into 
what is absolutely literal, turns not upon the word 
'is,' but on the word 'door,' 'vine,' or other noun, 
as the case may be.* 

"Webster, in his dictionary, gives the fifth mean- 
ing to the word ' door ' — means of approach — and 
he quotes as proof that meaning: "I am the door, 
by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved;' that 
is, the word 'am' does not mean represent, signify, 
or is a symbol of, but that Christ is really and 
truly, not symbolically, the door; in other words, 
He is the real means of approach to God. The 
same reasoning is to be applied to the interpreta- 
tion of the other words which Christ uses in de- 
scribing His character. 

"The dream language employed in the Old 
Testament, as the three branches (are) three days, 

*"The substantive word 'is' connects the predicate with 
the subject, and denotes that that which is offered in the Holy- 
Supper is really and truly not only bread, but also the body of 
ChnsL"—Sthmtd. 



THE SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR. 205 

Gen. xl. 12, the seven good kine (are) seven 
years, Gen. xli. 16, and others of similar import, 
cannot be successfully quoted against us. 1. The 
word are is not in the Hebrew text. 2. The 
branches, kine and ears, are not real branches, 
real kine, nor real ears, but the ideals of a dream. 
It is not three branches, but the three branches of 
the dream, that are three days. 3. Even if 'are' 
here meant signify, it would have no bearing on 
the Lord's Supper, which is not the interpretation 
of a dream. 4. The seven empty ears shall be 
seven years of famine, Gen. xli. 27. Does that 
mean shall signify, as if they did not equally 
signify then? or does it mean that the empty 
ears, if we express what they really are to be, 
'shall be seven years of famine.' 5. Would the 
inference be justifiable from this dream, that, 
Take, eat, these are seven ears prepared for your 
food — means, that there were no ears, but only 
symbols of ears? Pluck and strip, these are 
branches covered with delicious fruit — does this 
mean that there were no branches, no fruit, but 
symbols of them?" Who would thus interpret 
these words ? — and it cannot be avoided, if you 
adopt the Zwinglian mode.* 

*For a fuller discussion of this branch of the subject, see 
" Rr - , " 1 " f 'h. Conserv. Reform., 61*. 



206 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

"Finally, the presence of the body and blood of 
Christ in the Lord's Supper, does not consist in a 
mere spiritual partaking of them as an act of faith. 

"Now, we do not deny this spiritual partaking 
of Christ in itself, but on the contrary, we hold 
that no one can worthily partake of the Sacrament, 
who does not at the same time partake of Christ 
spiritually by faith. However, we must clearly 
distinguish between the worthy use and the real 
nature, or what we may call the substance, of this 
ordinance. For when we consider its nature and 
what is received by the communicant in it, we 
cannot be satisfied with regarding it as a mere 
spiritual reception, because our Lord gives us to 
eat and drink that which he presents in the Sup- 
per, so that in partaking of the bread and wine, we 
might at the same time really eat and drink His 
body and blood. He does not say, Take and be- 
lieve, but, Hat and drink. The spiritual partaking 
of Christ can only be effected by faith, and believ- 
ers alone can thus enjoy Him, but this can be done 
without the Sacrament. On the other hand, it is 
said of the unworthy and unbelieving, that they 
are guilty of the body and blood of Christ, because 
they do not discern the Lord's body. (As we shall 
have occasion to refer to this passage again, we 



THE SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR. 207 

shall pass by the further explanation of it for the 
present.) 

"It necessarily follows from this, that the un- 
worthy also partake of Christ's body and blood, 
though to their condemnation. We cannot other- 
wise conclude from Christ's words, that in them 
He included something more than that which be- 
lievers of all ages — yea, even those of the Old Tes- 
tament — enjoyed; otherwise, there would have been 
no necessity for a distinct institution. But we 
know that all believers, both of the Old and New 
Testaments, have at all times spiritually enjoyed or 
partaken of Christ by faith, as Paul expressly de- 
clares of the Israelites, 'that they drank of that 
spiritual rock that followed them, and that Rock 
was Christ, and that they did all eat of the spiritual 
meat and did all drink of the same spiritual drink,' 
1 Cor. x. 34. If then there should be nothing 
more than a spiritual partaking, believers of the 
New Testament would be receiving nothing more 
than those of the Old; indeed, they would receive 
nothing more than they daily enjoy by faith, and 
hence such an institution as the Lord's Supper 
would be superfluous, if not fruitless, which would 
not be consistent with the wisdom and goodness of 
the divine Founder of this blessed ordinance. 



208 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

"As we have now seen wherein the presence of 
the Lord in the Sacrament does not consist, it is 
necessary to consider the other side, and show, 

"Secondly, What our Church really does hold to 
be true doctrine of Christ's presence in the Lord's 
Supper. 

"Our Church confesses and believes in the true, 
essential presence of the body and blood of Christ, 
so that to all who partake, with the bread and wine, 
are at the same time imparted and communicated 
the real, essential body of Christ, which was given 
for us, and the blood of Christ which was shed for 
us. 

"The Augsburg Confession, in Art. X, thus ex- 
presses it, 'Of the Lord's Supper, we teach that 
the true body and blood of Christ are really present 
under the form of bread and wine, and there dis- 
tributed and received.' * 

"This excludes all figurative and substantial 
presence. We may indeed represent to our minds 
absent objects as though present, but they are not 

* The words "under the form" are not to be understood as 
meaning that bread and wine do not continue in the Holy Sup- 
per but only their " form; " this would be papal transubstanti- 
ation; but by the form is meant, the visible parts or elements of 
the Sacrament, which are unchanged. 



THE SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR. 200, 

really present in their substance; and thus faith 
can represent the body and blood of Christ as pres- 
ent, but it cannot bring to pass a real presence. It 
is imaginary and not real. But the body and blood 
of Christ are present in the Holy Supper in such 
way, that they are really imparted to us in the 
bread and wine. 

u Things may also be present by their effects and 
operations, which are not always substantially pres- 
ent at the places where their influence is exerted. 
For instance, the sun has its influence upon the 
earth and fills all space with light, which pene- 
trates to the deepest mines; but according to its 
substance it is not on the earth, but far away in the 
heavens. The body and blood of Christ are in the 
Sacrament not only in their effect and influence, 
but in their substance. But such presence we 
connect with those visible signs, which according 
to the words of the institution, indicate that what 
Christ gives us with the bread to eat is His body 
and what he gives us with the cup to drink is His 
blood; and it is not a figurative or spiritual body, 
but really that body which was given for us and 
really that blood which was shed for the forgive- 
ness of sins. 

" 'It is a presence of the whole person of Christ, 



2IO RAYS OF LIGHT. 

of the divine, by its inherent omnipresence, and of 
the human through the divine, a presence not 
ideal or feigned, but most true; not fleshly, but 
spiritual; not after the manner of this earth, but 
of the unseen world; not natural, but super- 
natural. ' — (Krautli). 

"Now, if we are asked, how can these things 
be? or to explain the manner and nature of the 
presence, our only answer is, that it is divine and 
incomprehensible. We do not see, feel or taste the 
body and blood of Christ in the Sacrament, for we 
do not parake of them in a carnal or Capernaitish 
manner; but we distinguish them from all other 
meat and drink, and they are communicated to us 
in a manner invisible and unsearchable. Nor is it 
necessary that we should know it or grasp it with 
our weak understanding, for it is a mystery and an 
article of faith, which we cannot comprehend, but 
we are bound to receive it and believe it upon the 
highest testimony.* Hence we believe in a true, 

* Luther sa}rs, "They want to know how Christ's body is in 
the bread, and if it cannot be explained to them, they deny its 
presence; and yet these same men do not know how to open 
their mouths, move their tongnes, or grasp a pen in their hands, 
and many other smaller things. I will not say anythiug about 
their not knowing how they see, hear, speak, or live. All these 



THE SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR. 211 

substantial presence of the body and blood of Christ, 
although we do not comprehend the mode, for that 
is divine and beyond human conception. 

"Gerhard, as quoted by Schmid (Hay's and 
Jacobs' admirable translation, p. 577), says: 'This 
presence is called Sacramental, because the celes- 
tial object in this mystery is bestowed and pre- 
sented to us through the medium of external sac- 
ramental symbols; it is called true and real, to 
exclude the figment of a figurative, imaginary and 
representative presence; substantial, to exclude 
the subterfuge of our opponents concerning the 
merely efficacious presence of the body and blood 
of Christ in this mystery; mystical, supernatural 
and incomprehensible, because in this mystery 
the body and blood of Christ are present, not in a 
worldly manner, but ill a mystical, supernatural 
and incomprehensible manner. Some of our theo- 
logians have called it a corporeal presence, but 
only with respect to the object and not at all to 
the mode; they wish to say by this, that not only 
the virtue and efficacy, but the substance itself of 
the body and blood of Christ, is present in the 

things we constantly feel and yet we do not know how they are 
brought about, and yet they want to know how Christ's body is 
in the bread, and will not let Christ be Master." 



212 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

Holy Supper, for they oppose this word to spirit- 
ual presence as it is defined by their opponents, 
but by no means wish to say thereby that the body 
of Christ is present in a corporeal and quantitative 
manner. 

c< But that others may see what has moved us to 
adopt this faith, we must consider the grounds 
upon which it is established. 

"II. WHAT ARE THE PROOFS OF THE DOCTRINE? 

"i. Our first ground for believing this doctrine 
is based upon the plain, distinct assurance of our 
Lord, 'Take, eat, this is my body,' etc. In these 
words, He gives instructions to His disciples con- 
cerning a new institution, of which they had as yet 
heard nothing, and announces to them its nature 
and design. For without such instruction it would 
have appeared very strange to them that, after 
partaking of the Paschal lamb and the ordinary 
meal, He would offer them a small piece of bread 
to eat and the cup from which to take a sip of 
wine, as they had already enjoyed both to their 
full satisfaction. Hence He takes bread, gives 
thanks, blesses and separates it from a common 
use, and gives it to them with the express direc- 
tion, 'Take, eat, this is my body,' thereby indicat- 



THE SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR. 213 

ing that something different and more exalted than 
common bread was given to them, which was His 
body, and so likewise with the cup. Now, in order 
to make the disciples properly understand what He 
was teaching them, it was necessary for Him to 
employ plain and distinct words, otherwise they 
would not have known what they were receiving 
or what conceptions to entertain respecting it. 

1 1 2. We are bound to interpret these words, just as 
we do other passages of Scripture, according to their 
plain, natural meaning. It is a fundamental rule 
of all Scripture interpretation, not to depart from 
the real, natural sense of the language without 
absolute necessity, and when the Scriptures them- 
selves direct us to do so. For they were not writ- 
ten after any human model or according to human 
fancy, neither must they be thus expounded, but 
as the Holy Ghost explains His own meaning- 
through His own words. Especially must we con- 
fine ourselves to the words of the Scripture in the 
commands and promises of God, the divine mys- 
teries and articles of faith, so that we may not be 
unawares betrayed into error. Chemnitz, one of 
our most eminent theologians, has wisely said: 
* The sacraments, because they are mysteries un- 
known to human reason and concealed from our 



214 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

senses, and which are made known and revealed 
by the Word alone, must therefore necessarily be 
interpreted and correctly learned by and according 
to the words in which they are announced and de- 
livered to us.' Although figurative language is 
sometimes used in the Bible, yet every article of 
faith must be expressed in plain, distinct -language; 
and we have no right to deviate from these natural 
words, unless the Scriptures themselves show us 
that they were not intended to be understood in a 
natural, but in a figurative sense. If we then take 
the words of our Lord in their obvious natural 
meaning, we cannot understand them in any other 
sense than that the body and blood of Christ are 
truly present in the Holy Supper. Take and eat, 
means, according to the natural understanding of 
the phrase, something that is offered and received, 
whether by the hand or mouth, and really eaten 
and enjoyed as food. That which is offered to the 
disciples is called 'this' — this which I give you — 
and it is not only bread which they have before 
their eyes, but it- comprehends the whole thing 
which was offered. The little word 'is,' accord- 
ing to the plain, natural understanding of it, does 
not mean signifies or represents, but it embraces 
that which really exists in it. The word ' body ' 



THE SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR. 215 

means a true, essential body, and not an apparent 
body or the sign of a body, and to mark the differ- 
ence, He says, 'My body/ so that it might not be 
understood of the figurative bod}' of the Paschal 
lamb, or of any other body. Hence these words 
cannot be understood in any other than the plain, 
natural sense, which is this: that which Christ has 
ordained in the Holy Supper, and which He gives 
us to eat and drink therein, is His true, essential 
body and His true, essential blood, given and shed 
for the forgiveness of sins. Every other explana- 
tion of the words, involving any change of the ele- 
ments or regarding them as a bare representation, 
is artificial, and is contrary to their natural mean- 
ing. 

"3. This mode of speech should not seem hard to 
adopt or unusual. When the physician prescribes 
a remedy and says, ' Take it; it is a valuable 
restorative, ' the patient understands the words ac- 
cording to their literal meaning, that in and with 
this potion (or whatever it may be) a healing 
medicine is offered, and he thinks of no change in 
the material or mere sign. It is a reality. Our 
old writers also illustrate this subject by the dove 
which appeared at the baptism of Christ, and by 
that other event, his breathing on the disciples. 



2l6 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

In Luke iii. 22, we read, 'And the Holy Ghost 
descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon 
him,' and in John i. 32, 'I saw the Spirit descend- 
ing from heaven like a dove.' The Holy Ghost 
was not changed into a dove, or locally included 
therein, but under the form of a dove He was 
really present. In John xx. 22, it is said, 'He 
breathed on them and saith, Receive ye the Holy 
Ghost.' The breath itself was not the Holy Ghost 
but only the means through which the Holy Ghost 
was communicated to them. Thus in the Holy 
Supper, ' Take, eat, this is my body; Take; drink, 
this is my blood,' because in, with and under the 
eating and drinking of the bread and wine, the 
blood and body of Christ are at the same time 
communicated to us. 

"4. But we must also consider the language as 
that of a last will and testament, which should 
always be precise and obvious. 

"Shortly before His death, our Lord instituted 
this memorial of His love, as a testament and be- 
quest to His disciples, and sealed it with His blood, 
and hence it has all the force and authority of 
such a document. In the preparation of a testa- 
ment, men take special pains to use the most 
precise and most intelligible language, so that no 



THE SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR. 217 

misunderstanding and dissension may ensue; 
much more would Christ not employ ambiguous 
or obscure words. St. Paul, Gal. iii. 15, says, 
'that though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it 
be confirmed, no man disannulleth nor addeth 
thereto;' this sentiment must apply with greater 
force to the last testamentary words of our L,ord. 
No figurative terms are used in such documents. 
The legacy must be described in clear, distinct 
words, so that each heir may know what and how 
much is his portion of the inheritance. The 
division of the property is made agreeably to such 
terms, as well as the decision of the executors and 
of the courts. Who would be satisfied if he was 
distinctly named in a will and a nice farm or a 
snug sum of money were bequeathed to him, and 
some one would come forward and contend that 
the language had quite a different meaning, — that 
it was to be understood figuratively, and would try 
to deprive him of the legacy itself? — would he not 
properly and strenuously insist upon the interpre- 
tation of the words as they stand, and not submit 
to a perversion of them, to be wheedled out of his 
rights? Why should we not allow the testament 
of our Lord the same privilege? Why should we 
permit the 'abundant riches' which He bequeaths 
15 



2l8 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

to us in plain words to be wrung from our hands ? 
If others wish to interpret the language differently, 
they do it at their peril; but they cannot blame us, 
if to the honor of Christ, we adhere to His simple 
declaration, and say with Luther, 'My dear Lord 
Jesus, a terrible dispute has arisen about Thy lan- 
guage in Thy Holy Supper. Some maintain that 
Thy words are to be understood in a different sense 
from what they convey. But as these men teach 
me nothing certain, but only perplex me and raise 
doubts in my mind, and neither will nor can prove 
their position, I will stick to Thy text, just as the 
words speak. If there is anything dark in them, 
it was Thy will it should be so, for Thou hast 
given no other explanation of them, nor com- 
manded it to be done." 

"5. The harmony of the Evangelists and of 
Paul on this subject. The three gospel writers, 
Matthew, Mark and Luke (John entirely omits 
the report) use precisely the same words in record- 
ing the transaction, ' This is my body, ' etc. Now, 
these inspired men in relating the same events of 
another character, differ in their language or in- 
troduce additional facts connected with the story, 
and from this we may conclude that the Holy 
Ghost purposely directed them to use the same 



THE SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR. 2IO, 

words in relating the fact of the Lord's Supper, so 
that we might not in the least degree depart from 
their true and obvious meaning. What is more 
remarkable, Paul, who wrote a considerable time 
after the ascension of our Lord, and who did not 
copy his account from the evangelists nor 're- 
ceive it from men, but by the revelation of Jesus 
Christ,' Gal. i. 12, expressly testifies, that 'I have 
received of the Lord, that which also I have 
delivered unto you,' and then uses precisely the 
same language as the evangelists, 'Take, eat, this 
is my body,' etc., etc., and perfectly agrees with 
them in all respects. Now, if it had been in- 
tended that we should understand the words they 
use in a sense different from what they convey, it 
is very likely that they would have been so inter- 
preted by Paul, in order to preserve the Church 
from error. But he does not teach a doctrine dif- 
ferent from that of the gospel writers, but employs 
precisely the same words. If, then, a fact is proved 
by testimony of two or three witnesses, why should 
we not allow the evidence of the three evangelists 
and of Paul to prevail, when in this affair they 
speak as with one tongue? Our old master, Che- 
mnitz, well says: "He, therefore, who departs from 
these repetitions and seeks elsewhere another in- 



220 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

terpretation, is as ungrateful as contumelious to- 
wards the studied accuracy and paternal solicitude 
of the Son of God, our preceptor, who alone can 
open and expound the closed book." 

"In addition to the words of the institution, Paul 
describes the Lord's Supper thus, 'The cup of 
blessing which we bless, is it not the communion 
of (that is, the means of participating in) the blood 
of Christ? the bread which we break, is it not the 
communion of the body of Christ?' The word 
'communion,' as here used, also means communi- 
cation as it is used in i Cor. xi. 17, 18, 21, where 
in our English Bible it is called partaking, and in 
Heb. xiii. 16, where it is 'communicated,' but it is 
the same word in Greek in one or another of its 
forms. Thus the bread and wine in the sacra- 
ment are such a communion, through which the 
body and blood of Christ are really offered and 
communicated. If there exists a real communion 
between the two objects, so that one communicates 
itself to the other, they cannot be separated as the 
heavens are from the earth, but there must exist 
between themselves a close union. Now Paul says: 
1 The blessed cup and the blessed bread ' are a com- 
munion of the body and the blood of Christ, through 
which the body and blood of Christ are really com- 



THE SACRAMENT OE THE ALTAR. 221 

municated, and of which we become 'partakers.' 
This 'communion' in the sacrament is not spirit- 
ual communion or 'fellowship' spoken of in i Cor. 
i. 9, nor of the benefits of Christ, but of the body 
and blood of Christ. Surely, they must be present 
to be 'communicated' to us. But if all this is to 
be understood only as a spiritual communion, it 
could not be said that ' the blessed cup and bread ' 
are the 'communion,' but rather that faith is the 
'communion' of the body and blood, because by 
faith alone we become partakers of Christ spiritu- 
ally. Nor is it to be considered a bare figurative 
representation, for the apostle does not say that the 
cup and the bread are the signs of the ' commun- 
ion,' but the 'communion' is the body and blood 
of Christ itself. 

u 6. The truth of our proposition is established 
upon the divine character of its blessed Founder. 

"It is not without reason that Paul twice de- 
clares, 'I have received of the Lord Jesus that 
which also I have delivered unto you, that the 
Lord Jesus the same night in which he was be- 
trayed took bread,' etc., i Cor. xi. 23; xv. 3. 
Hence it is the Lord who founded the Supper, and 
who has the right to govern all creation, and whom 
we are bound to obey; and as this is the Lord, as 



222 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

the Son of God and God Himself lias founded this 
ordinance, we dare not mistrust His words nor in- 
stitutions, but we may be assured that His words 
are true. When men commit errors in the use of 
language or deceive by their promises, it may be 
imputed to their lack of wisdom or their inability 
to express themselves correctly, and thus lead to a 
misapprehension of their meaning; or it may be 
because they are not sincere, and purposely use 
ambiguous language; or they may honestly prom- 
ise and not be able to fulfill their promises; or, 
finally, they may intentionally deceive by uttering 
that which they know is not true. 

u Not one of these imperfections can we impute 
to our Lord without blasphemy. His words are 
yea and amen. Why then should we not take 
Him at His word, and believe what He distinctly 
says ? One jot of His word is of more value than 
all human reason united, and infinitely above a 
thousand decrees of Councils. 

"7. Our last proof is, the fearful condemnation 
which all those bring upon themselves, who un- 
worthily partake of the Lord's Supper. 

"Paul describes such as being guilty of the body 
and blood of Christ, 1 Cor. ii. 27, 29, eating and 
drinking damnation (judgment) to himself, notdis- 



THE SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR. 223 

cerning the Lord's body. The apostle does not 
say, that unworthy partakers render themselves 
'guilty' of Christ, nor of His honor, nor of His 
ordinance, but expressly of His 'body and blood,' 
and that unworthily eating and drinking, which 
blame or inculpation, if it has any meaning at all, 
must depend upon the presence of the body and 
blood, and this offence consists in ' not discerning 
the Lord's body.' 

"Here we will again quote from Dr. Krauth's 
Conservative Reformation, p. 643: 'To discern' 
means to 'make or put differences between' — to 
distinguish between two things which there is a 
liability of confounding — to mark the distinction 
between one thing and another. The point of the 
apostle is, That which you receive in the Lord's 
Supper is not mere bread and wine, as your con- 
duct would imply that it is, but it is also the body 
and blood of Christ; therefore your guilt (taking its 
root in your failure to discern this body and blood) 
is not that of the abuse of the bread and wine, but 
of the indignity offered to His body and blood which 
they (the bread and wine) communicate; therefore 
your punishment is not simply that of men guilty 
of gluttony and drunkenness, but that of men 
guilty of a wrong done to the body and blood of 



224 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

Christ; therefore sickness and death have been sent 
to warn you of your awful crime, and if these warn- 
ings be not heeded, your final doom will be to per- 
ish with the world. 

"Now, if on the other hand, we are to under- 
stand this of a merely spiritual partaking, we 
cannot say of the ' unworthy' that they render 
themselves 'guilty of the body and blood of Christ,' 
for they cannot spiritually partake of these because 
of their unworthiness and unbelief; true, by their 
unbelief they make themselves 'guilty' of or 
against Christ; but they cannot sin against the 
body and blood of Christ, if both are not present. 
Besides, there is no necessity of 'discerning' the 
Lord's body, if the unworthy receive nothing in 
the sacrament but the external bread and wine. 
If a bare 'representation' of the body and blood of 
Christ is to be made in the sacrament, it cannot be 
said that the unworthy can make themselves 
'guilty of the body and blood of Christ' in not 
' discerning the Lord's body,' but they make them- 
selves guilty only of the external signs thereof, and 
do not properly 'discern' (or discriminate) such 
signs from the ordinary partaking of food and 
drink. But this is not the obvious meaning of the 
apostle's language, for according to that the essen- 



THE SACRAMENT OF THE AI/fAR. 225 

tial presence of the body and blood are necessary 
to render this self-inculpation possible. One of 
our old theologians (Danhauer) uses this language: 
The apostle seems scrupulous in the choice of his 
words, and says, 'He is guilty of (that is, he sins 
against) not the bread, not the soul of Christ, but 
the body and blood of the Lord, just as Judas 
sinned against the cheek of the Saviour when he 
kissed it with his treacherous lips, just as the mur- 
derers of Christ made themselves guilty of the in- 
nocent blood which they cruelly shed; just as he 
who hears the word of God with his outward ear 
but rejects it in his heart, sins against that word." 

CONSECRATION AND ADMINISTRATION. 

The sacramental union of the body and blood of 
the Lord with the bread and wine takes place at 
the moment of the eating: and drinking of the 
latter. The consecration of the visible elements 
is, however, of the greatest importance, for it is the 
preliminary step leading up to the ultimate purpose 
of the Saviour, to wit, the Sacramental union. 
The consecrated bread and cup are set apart from 
a common to a divine use, which is in harmony 
with the original institution of the Supper, and 
which, accordingly, meets the good pleasure of the 



226 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

Ivord. The elements thus dedicated are distributed 
to each communicant, with the words of the insti- 
tution and such other Scriptures as are adapted to 
calling to mind the purport of the Sacrament. 
Both the consecration and the distribution, in my 
view, must be done by the regular minister and by 
no other. Inasmuch as God's promises are yea and 
amen, this means of grace is valid, irrespective of 
the moral and spiritual condition of the officiating 
minister. If he were an angel, nothing would be 
added, and if he were a devil, naught would be 
subtracted. 



BENEFITS. 

Although each communicant participates in the 
body and blood of the L,ord, only those who believe 
receive the benefits designed to be effected by this 
Sacrament. All others eat and drink to their con- 
demnation, as Paul says: "He that eateth and 
drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh condem- 
nation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body." 

The following are among the chief favors con- 
ferred on the worthy and believing communicant. 
First, the confirmation and sealing of the promise 
of the remission of sins. I do not say that the ob- 
servance of this institution secures the forgiveness 



THE SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR. 227 

of sins, for the same was actually granted before, 
but it seals\and confirms, in a visible manner, that 
pardon has already been obtained. As in the sac- 
rament of baptism we have the assurance that the 
Holy Ghost is given to regenerate and sanctify, 
so in the supper one has the guarantee that the 
body and blood of the Lord is communicated to 
confirm and ratify the previous work of the Holy 
Spirit, and the results of his work — Justification, 
Regeneration, and Sanctification. 

Secondly, the communion strengthens faith in 
Jesus Christ. The Saviour herein personally im- 
parts himself to the communicant, which implies 
that He is a living and glorified Lord. The ex- 
ternal elements are truly emblems of his broken 
body and shed blood — of his death; but they are 
also, in their very nature, true symbols of life and 
strength, and thus of His resurrected and immortal 
life. Now, the visible sign and the invisible fact 
— the reception of the living Lord — establish and 
increase faith in the once crucified, but now living 
Lord of glory. 

Thirdly, another benefit is the augmentation of 
love to Christ and to man. This grace is strong 
or weak in direct ratio to faith. The latter grasps 
Christ in all His fulness, and the former follows up 



228 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

with the alabaster box of ointment. Furthermore, 
in proportion as one loves Christ one also loves all 
brother men. The question, How can I come into 
closer sympathy and fellow feeling with u my 
neighbor?" is readily answered in the light of the 
above proposition. Live in greater affection and 
sympathy with Christ, the Creator, and you will 
live in like manner with man, the creature. Love 
to Jesus Christ is the solvent of all questions con- 
cerning charitable and missionary operations and 
enterprises. 

Lastly, the Eucharist is effectual in brightening 
hope and working joyful gratitude and praise. 
Faith, love, hope, these three. As one is, so is the 
other. Although the grace of hope has no place 
in the world to come, it does have place in this. 
It is the anchor of the soul, which keeps us sure 
and steadfast upon the fitful and stormy sea of life. 
It is the rudder which enables us to sail straight 
toward the heaven of eternal peace. But in what- 
ever soul these graces find their fullest develop- 
ment and most perfect work, there also is grateful 
praise and joyful adoration. The smallest and the 
largest blessings alike are recognized as the gift of 
God } and to Him will be ascribed all honor and 
power and glory for ever and ever. 



LECTURE X. 



Prayer. 

i Thess. v. 17. 



/ Thess. v. 77. Pray without ceasing. 



LECTURE X. 

It is just possible that this is not the most suit- 
able place to take up the subject of prayer. Prayer 
is not a means of grace, but rather a means to 
grace. Properly speaking, it is not employed by 
the Iyord to restore a sinner to His favor, but it is 
employed by the repentant sinner for purposes 
which will be indicated in the progress of this lec- 
ture. In view of the character of this exercise it 
follows, chronologically, the next lecture, Salva- 
tion. In order, however, to prevent diversion of 
attention, and to aid continuity of thought, from 
Salvation to Glorification, I shall introduce this 
subject at this point. 

I. I call your attention, first of all, to the essen- 
tial character of prayer. Montgomery sings : 

"Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, 
Uttered or unexpressed, 
The motion of a hidden fire 
That trembles in the breast. 
(231) 



22)2 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

« 

"Prayer is the burden of a sigh, 

The falling of a tear ; 
The upward glancing of an eye 
When none but God is near. 

" Prayer is the simplest form of speech 
That infant lips can try ; 
Prayer the sublimest strains that reach 
The Majesty on high. 

" Prayer is the Christian's vital breath, 
The Christian's native air, 
His watch-word at the gate of death — 
He enters heaven with prayer." 

We are greatly assisted in the discussion of our 
subject by calling to mind three facts concerning 
God and man. First, God is an infinite being. As 
such nothing can be added to His perfections and 
plans. He is all-wise, all-powerful, all-merciful 
and all-loving. Not a single point of information 
can be communicated to Him, not one iota of power 
can be added, neither can His moral attributes be 
more fully excited and evoked toward His creatures. 
This involves the fact that God's providential pur- 
poses and plans in behalf of man are perfect and 
complete; and inasmuch as God is the same from 
eternity to eternity, it follows that these purposes 
and plans are now what they have been, and will 



PRAYER. 233 

always be what they are now. Is not therefore 
prayer excluded? Certain it is that the creature 
will not be allowed to break down, by his prayers, 
the plans of the Creator. 

The second fact to be remembered is, that God 
is most truly a Father to His people. As such He 
has made abundant provision for prayer. His 
providential plans are not only comprehensive, 
but all-comprehensive, including the motions of 
the soul of man in meditation and prayer. Thus 
while prayer is not needed to add aught to God's 
perfections, or to cause Him to alter His plans, it 
to the contrary absolutely demands those perfec- 
tions and plans precedent to this act. 

By reason of the attributes of omniscience and 
omnipotence, God was perfectly competent to 
establish His general providence, at the very be- 
ginning, with a view to all the prayers that would 
ever be made relative to that general providence. 
In this, as in every other realm, God's fore- 
knowledge preceded, and His foreordination fol- 
lowed. Likewise touching the matter of special 
or particular providence. He who made us knew 
from the first what the thoughts, aspirations and 
prayers of each soul would be, and surely it must 
have been an easy matter for Him to so arrange 
16 



234 RAY S OF LIGHT. 

all things as to respond to our individual prayers, 
in the fulness of time, after they are lifted to His 
ears. 

At this juncture the question naturally arises, 
are there any miraculous answers to prayer? The 
answer depends on our conception of miracles. If 
by miracle we hold of an event that it is outside 
of the original plan of divine movement, or beyond 
the "reign of law," then I answer in the negative. 
If on the other hand, our notion of a miracle makes 
it to be an event simply above, and sometimes con- 
trary to the ordinary course of nature, then I an- 
swer in the affirmative. In this view tens of thou- 
sands of answers to prayers are miraculous. Allow 
me to illustrate. I take an extreme case. Suppose 
a dear friend has died. You have faith to believe 
that God can restore. You act on that faith, and 
pray for His restoration to life. God answers your 
prayer by touching the requisite hidden forces, and 
your friend lives. This is a miracle, for it is con- 
trary to the ordinary course of things. But note, 
that this is not a miracle in such sense as to exclude 
the purpose and plan of God from eternity relative 
to this very event. In the beginning, when He 
planned and ordained the existent universe, God 
knew of this death and prayer. He determined to 



PRAYER. 235 

answer your request. So determining, all the 
necessary factors entering into that answer were 
already brought into play, either potentially or 
absolutely. When the time came to give the 
answer, it was done; and that as we have already 
seen, without the slightest violation of the "laws 
of nature" — concerning which so many scientists 
are so badly frightened. 

It may be profitably remarked here that the an- 
swers to many prayers are not accounted miracu- 
lous, because they are open and visible. In many 
cases answers can be returned by the very persons 
who offer the prayer. It does not follow, however, 
that these are not direct answers from God ; for if 
He had not taken these prayers into consideration, 
matters would not have been so arranged as that 
the answers could come after the manner they do. 

The third fact I mention is, that as God is not 
only Creator, but also a Father; so are men not only 
creatures, but also children. The relation existing 
between God and men is, therefore, that of father 
and children. All the facts and principles involved 
in every w r ell-ordered earthly family are, accord- 
ingly, identical with those in this "family of God." 
Now, in an earthly family the children ought to 
possess a spirit of dependence, trust, prayer and 



236 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

love. They ought to realize their need of the favor 
and counsel of their father; they should confide in 
his willingness and ability to assist them; and fur- 
thermore, they should be encouraged to freely and 
fully unbosom their desires and wishes to him. 
Surely where these things exist, there will tender 
and sincere affection reign supreme. Transfer this 
argument to the higher realm, and we at once ap- 
prehend the true philosophy of our subject. In this 
view, it becomes apparent that prayer becomes ab- 
solutely essential in man's relation to his heavenly 
Father. Although God's providential plans toward 
him were fixed from of old, this does not militate 
against the fullest outflow of the soul toward Him. 
For I desire to emphasize again, that it was in view 
of such prayer that the Father decreed His benign 
economy. Every one may be fully persuaded that 
his prayers go up before God, to be heard and an- 
swered. I^et us rejoice that we can "come to a 
throne of grace boldly, to obtain grace to help in 
time of need." "He that cometh to God must 
believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of 
them that diligently seek him." "Ask and ye 
shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it 
shall be opened unto you." "Whatsoever ye ask 
the Father in my name, that will I give unto you." 



% 

PRAYER. 237 

These promises, with hundreds more of the same 
import, establish the fact that "the effectual, fer- 
vent prayer of the righteous man availeth much." 
The action and reaction of prayer are alike salu- 
tary; the former in evoking God's gifts and bless- 
ings upon man, the latter in evoking the noblest 
parts of man as a gift and offering to God. 

What more shall I say relative to the nature and 
character of prayer? This will I say : It is the 
meek, childlike, trusting, loving cry of the crea- 
ture to the infinite Creator, in the sweet assurance 
of tender audience and cheerful response. 

II. I now crave your attention for the consider- 
ation of a few characteristics of true prayer. 

If I am not mistaken, there prevails a great deal of 
mist and fog around our subject in the minds of 
good people. People are frequently perplexed over 
the many seemingly unanswered prayers they and 
others have lifted to God. They are at a loss to 
reconcile the teachings of the Scriptures on this 
subject with certain indisputable cases of unan- 
swered prayers. Doubtless the fault lies some- 
where, that such is the case. Inasmuch as it can- 
not attach to God, it must attach to man. "Ye 
pray and receive no answer, because ye pray 
amiss." 



238 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

Let us note that all the legitimate objects of 
prayer are divisible into two classes : Those for 
which prayer may be made conditionally, and 
those for which prayer may be offered uncondition- 
ally. The objects belonging to the first class are 
the temporal gifts and blessings; those in the 
second class are the spiritual favors — that is, all 
endowments that actually enter into man's growth 
in grace and in the knowledge of the Iyord. In 
respect to all matters outside of the last named, 
man must recognize the fact that his desires and 
will and the will of God may be dissimilar. Man 
is short-sighted and knows not always what is best 
for him — his wants are by no means always his 
needs, and his desires and his truest interests often 
collide. Hence, if he is a trustful child of God, he 
will always pray: "Not my will, but Thine be 
done." This constitutes the condition alluded to. 
In respect to the spiritual blessings above men- 
tioned, there are no conditions limiting and gov- 
erning prayer. 'Petitioning the Father for His 
grace and the gift of His Spirit, surely must always 
be in accord with His will and pleasure; and since 
there is certainty as to that, man's will and God's 
agree, and hence the prayer ought to be absolute. 

Owing to the fact that many people do not dis- 



PRAYER. 239 

criminate between objects of prayer, they petition 
the throne of grace in the same unconditional man- 
ner for all blessings whatever. God in His good- 
ness and mercy sees fit to withhold many of 
the things asked for. Thereupon those who are 
denied what they have urged, become perplexed 
and discouraged, and frequently fall into doubt and 
despair. But all this time the blame belongs to 
them, and not to the Father. 

We must make account of another characteristic 
belonging to our subject. It is this: there are two 
distinct factors inseparably connected with all true 
prayer. They are faith and works. The former 
we understand of an implicit reliance and trust in 
our God and Saviour. It is a feeling of assurance 
that the heavenly Father will verify every promise 
on record, in His own way and time. By the lat- 
ter is meant a thorough co-operation with Qod in 
the direction of the offered prayers. I said at an- 
other place that the petitioner may occasionally be 
the agent in securing an answer to his supplica- 
tions. For instance, one appeals for his "daily 
bread." Ordinarily the way to bring the answer 
is to employ the strength and talents God supplies, 
laboring for it. Another presses his suit in behalf 
of the conversion of a friend. Now let him work 



240 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

toward that end in personal appeal, and especially 
in the presentation of the gospel, and the end 
designed will likely be speedily realized. These 
illustrations suffice to indicate my thought. 

I submit that nine-tenths of the unanswered 
prayers are due to the lack of one or the other, or 
both, of these factors. In this, as in the matter 
of salvation, "faith without works is dead," and 
works without faith are a mockery. In all religious 
acts and movements these two are joined together 
by Him who made us, and no man must put them 
asunder. Supply these two factors — with all they 
necessarily imply — and the question of answers is 
solved. All that is agreeable to the will of God 
will be unfailingly forthcoming. "Pray as if 
all depended on God, and work as if all depended 
on yourself" — that puts an end to all speculations. 

III. The form of prayer is a matter that chal- 
lenges our attention briefly. 

As a man comes into the presence of God in the 
act of prayer, various thoughts pass over the disc of 
his mind. In that presence he thinks of the great- 
ness and majesty of Him whom- he is about to ad- 
dress. He calls to mind that God is the creator, 
preserver and benefactor of all things in the uni- 
verse; that He is infinite in perfections, and eternal 



PRAYER. 241 

in existence. These truths recognized will con- 
strain one to utter words of adoration. This is 
usually the first part of prayer. The Scriptures 
furnish us most beautiful and striking expressions 
of adoration. The introduction to the Lord's 
Prayer is most beautiful on account of its great 
simplicity and evident sincerity: u Our Father who 
art in heaven." At Acts i v. 24, the apostles intro- 
duced their appeal in sore trial thus : "Lord, thou 
art God, which hath made heaven and earth and 
the sea and all that in them is." Daniel began a 
prayer, "O Lord, thou great and awe-inspiring 
God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that 
love Him and to them that keep His command- 
ments." Approaching the heavenly Father with 
such form of sound words on his lips, the worshiper 
fills his mind with a proper spirit of reverence and 
devotion. 

From Adoration there is a natural and almost 
necessary transition to Confession. The soul hav- 
ing dwelt on the character of God in adoration, 
will now inevitably turn back to self. What a 
contrast! God so exalted, and man so abased. God 
so wise and mighty and pure, and man so ignorant 
and weak and sinful. God so condescending and 
true to man, and man so rebellious and unfaithful 



242 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

to God. In the presence of trie L,ord, man sees the 
sinfulness of sin as nowhere else, which may well 
cause him to cry out: "What is man that Thou 
art mindful of him, or the son of man that Thou 
visitest him?" 

As one perceives the weakness of his spiritual 
strength and the impurity of his holiness, and 
remembers that all his sufficiency is from God, how 
ready is he to acknowledge the one, that he may 
receive the other. Abraham called himself "dust 
and ashes." Job declares: "Behold, I am vile, 
what shall I answer thee?" David says: "For I 
acknowledge my transgression, and my sin is ever 
before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, 
and done this evil in thy sight." Isaiah exclaims: 
"Woe is me, for I am undone; because I am a man 
of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a peo- 
ple of unclean lips." Daniel confesses: "We have 
sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have 
done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by depart- 
ing from thy precepts." The Word is full of con- 
fessions similar to the foregoing. Who but makes 
like acknowledgment, as he faithfully draws the 
contrast between self and Jehovah? 

The step from Confession to 4 Thanksgiving is 
short and easy. Adoration and confession, these 



PRAYER. 243 

necessarily induce praise and thankfulness. The 
worshiper delights. to recall all the past mercies 
and blessings of -God, and to meditate upon them, 
both for their own sake as having already been en- 
joyed, and for the reason that they are inspirers of 
faith that their Giver will continue to be gracious 
in the future. Indeed, present and past favors are 
very potent in encouraging the child of God to make 
application for future good. Who, however, is base 
enough to recall and ponder upon these things 
without an overflow and outflow of grateful praise? 
Surely not he who is right before the Lord. Let 
us turn again to the Holy Scriptures. In the ninth 
Psalm we find these words: "I will praise Thee, 
O Lord, with my whole heart; I will show forth all 
Thy marvelous works." Again, in the ciii. Psalm: 
"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within 
me bless His holy name." In David's prayer, 
on the occasion of Solomon's regal association with 
him, we find the following sublime utterance: 
"Blessed art Thou, Lord God of Israel, our Father, 
for ever and ever. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness 
and the power and the glory and the victory and 
the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and in 
the earth is Thine; Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, 
and Thou art exalted as head above all. Both 



244 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

riches and honor came of Thee, and Thou reignest 
over all, and in Thy hand is power and might, and 
in Thy hand it is to make great and to give strength 
to all. Now, therefore, our God, we thank Thee 
and praise Thy glorious name. ' ' Jesus once prayed : 
"I thank Thee, O Father, L,ord of heaven and 
earth." Again, "Father, I thank Thee that Thou 
hast heard me." Paul writes to the Philippians: 
"In everything by prayer and supplication, with 
thanksgiving, let your requests be made known 
unto God." 

The last part that belongs to the form of prayer 
is Petition. This is prayer proper. In this the 
suppliant makes his appeal to Him from whom 
cometh "every good and perfect gift," who also is 
" the Author and Finisher of our faith." Inasmuch 
as this phase of the subject was sufficiently dis- 
cussed in the early part of this lecture, nothing 
further will be remarked in this place, except to 
say that the Old and New Testaments contain un- 
ceasing exhortations to prayer. All through the 
Bible men are encouraged to call upon God for all 
they need — things great and small; with the assur- 
ance that He will hear and answer. 

IV. Prayer is the instinct of the regenerate 
heart. 



PRAYER. 245 

The pious in all the ages past have delighted in 
this exalted and exalting exercise. Dr. Patton 
writes on this point as follows: Prayer evidently 
accompanied the accepted sacrifice of Abel, as he 
stood by his slain lamb, confessed his sin, and 
implored divine mercy. It must have been the 
breath of the spiritual life of the holy Enoch, 
during those three hundred years in which he 
u walked with God." It was the characteristic 
of Abraham, "the friend of God," who carried to 
His divine Friend all thoughts and plans for him- 
self and for those he loved. Isaac and Jacob were 
praying men; and it was from this fact that the 
latter gained his immortal name of Israel — Prince of 
God; because of his urgent prayer he gained a 
victory as one possessed of power like a prince. 
Moses had special power in this direction, and 
prevailed wonderfully in intercession for others. 
Samuel was noted for the same trait, and when 
he resigned his judgeship, the people made it 
their parting request that he would not cease to 
pray for them. David was always on his knees, if 
we may judge from his Psalms, which are as much 
prayers as praises, and in one of which he de- 
scribes his own habits as follows: "Evening and 
morning and noon will I pray, and cry aloud, and 



246 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

He shall hear my voice." His faith in this for all 
men, as well as for himself, led him to say: u 
Thou that hearest prayer, unto Thee shall all men 
come." Elijah, the petitioner, is as famous as 
Elijah, the reprover and reformer; so that in the far 
away time of the New Testament Church, he 
could be held up as an example and encourage- 
ment in prayer, by James, who, in illustration of 
his assertion that the effectual fervent prayer of 
a righteous man availeth much, said: "Elias was 
a man subject to like passions as we are, and he 
prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it 
rained not on the earth on the land where he 
lived, for a period of three years and six months; 
and he prayed again, and the heavens gave rain 
and the earth brought forth her fruit." To name 
no other Old Testament saint, Daniel will stand 
forever associated with a willing martyrdom, so to 
speak, on behalf of this duty and privilege, as will 
His deliverance ever be a monument of its power. 
The New Testament saints kept the same char- 
acteristics. One of the earliest personages in the 
history is Anna, of whom it is said that "she 
departed not from the temple, but served God with 
fastings and prayers, day and night." Simeon 
was of kindred spirit, as were Zacharias and Eliza- 



PRAYER. 247 

beth, and Joseph and Mary. Jesus not only taught 
His disciples to pray, and Himself offered petitions 
publicly, on various recorded occasions, but some- 
times spent whole nights in prayer, alone upon the 
mountain tops or in the wilderness; and it was 
with praying breath that He expired upon the 
Cross. The testimony borne concerning thou- 
sands of converts made on the day of Pentecost is: 
"They continued steadfastly in the apostles' doc- 
trine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and 
in prayers." The apostles themselves prayed for 
ten days, steadily, prior to that scene of wonders; 
and in every new trial or difficulty which occurred, 
we read of their uniting in solemn petition for 
aid. Paul, the last and greatest of the apostles, 
was full of the spirit of supplication; and not only 
does the book of Acts contain references to many 
occasions on which he prayed, as for instance, in 
the prison at Philippi, and the parting scene at 
Miletus, but his epistles constantly allude to the 
earnestness and fervency of his prayers for individ- 
uals and churches, and abound in commands and 
exhortations to Christians to pray in turn for him, 
and to maintain the habit of prayer "without 
ceasing." . 

The history of the Church since the apostolic 



240 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

days has presented the same aspect. Luther, 
speaking of his use of the Lord's Prayer, says, 
"For to this day, I suck still at the Pater Noster, 
like a child; I eat and drink thereof like a full 
grown man, and can never have enough." It was 
said of him "that he could have what he would of 
God." It is related of him by one who heard him 
on a certain occasion, that his tone was reverent as 
if speaking to his Maker, and yet he maintained 
the confidence of one who is conversing with a 
sympathizing friend. At one time there was a 
crisis in the affairs of the Reformation. Persecu- 
tion had broken out. Friends were few and weak, 
while enemies were many and strong. Human 
weakness must attach itself to omnipotent power. 
Luther was not dismayed, for he knew the secret 
of hidden power. His battle-hymn pointed the 
source: " Bin feste Burg ist uuser Gott. " 

He wrestled alone with God, till like one of old, 
he had prevailed. Then he went into the room 
were his family had assembled, with joyous and 
exultant heart; and raising his hands, with uplifted 
eyes, he exclaimed: "We have overcome! We 
have overcome!" It afterwards proved that just 
at that time, the Emperor Charles V. issued his 
proclamation of religious toleration in Germany. 



PRAYER. 249 

Doubtless Luther had pleaded this Scripture: 
u The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, 
as the rivers of water; He turneth it whitherso- 
ever He will." 

Time fails me to speak of the prayers of Me- 
lanchthon, Calvin, Zwinglius, and scores of others 
since their time, who were mighty with God in 
prayer. (< 'Piety and prayer are synonymus." 

Space forbids that I should recite some of the 
endless number of answers to prayer. It is enough 
to say that no sooner can God refuse to respond to 
His children's cries than that He can deny His 
Fatherly nature and character. 

The history of man is the history of prayer ; the 
history of God is the history #/~ ANSWERS to prayer. 

"Come to the morning prayer; 
Come, let us kneel and pray ; 
Prayer is the Christian pilgrim's staff, 
To walk with God all day. 

"At noon, beneath the Rock 
Of Ages, rest and pray ; 
Sweet is that shelter from the heat, 
When the sun smites by day. 

"At evening shut thy door; 
Round the home-altar pray ; 
&nd, finding there the house of God, 
At Heaven's gate close the day, 
'i7 



250 RAYS OF LIGHT. 



When midnight veils our eyes, 

O, it is sweet to say, 
I sleep, but my heart waketh, Lord, 

With thee to watch and pray," 

James Montgomery. 



LECTURE XL 



Salvation, 

Eph. ii 



Eph. ii. 8. For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that 
not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God. 



LECTURE XI. 

WE now enter upon a subject which of all that 
have been treated, is the most pleasing and inspir- 
ing. Well nigh all which has been said in these 
addresses leads up to and clusters around this cen- 
tral thought. Every movement of God earthward, 
from the first promise of a Redeemer to Adam and 
Kve till the outpouring of the Holy Ghost on the 
day of Pentecost, had reference, more or less direct, 
to man's spiritual recovery. 

The three specific subjects which enter into our 
discussion are: Justification, Regeneration and 
Sanctification. Regeneration and Sanctiflcation 
are the final ends towards which everything points 
and moves, as Justification is the immediate end. 
The Forensic act of God is in order to the Ther- 
apeutic. The former is objective to man, the latter 
subjective. 

For the purpose of clearing the way for an intel- 
ligent discussion of the matter in hand, I recur 
briefly to a point or two advanced in the second lec- 
ture— " The Fall." You recall that I mentioned 

(253) 



254 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

that the principal result of the Fall was the dis- 
turbance and perversion of man's rational, or spir- 
itual, constitution. This was "Death." This 
was the infliction of the violated penalty. This 
was subjective. You also remember that I said 
there was another result, to wit, the objective — in 
the mind of God. It was not only proper and right 
in the Creator to give a just and wise law to the 
creature, but such was an absolute necessity. The 
sanction of the law was an exact exponent of the 
mind of the Law-giver in reference to disobedience. 
Now, when transgression ensued the penalty must 
be inflicted, or the Lawgiver's veracity and holi- 
ness and all his other moral attributes, will be im- 
peached. This is the only alternative. But the 
latter is out of the question, and, therefore, the 
former must be accomplished. 

Note well that the voluntary disobedience of the 
original pair necessarily affected the mind of God 
concerning them. It did not affect the thoughts of 
God, as to whether man is a good creature; nor His 
moral feelings, as goodness, love, etc. ; nor yet His 
will, as touching their salvation. But their trans- 
gression did affect Him in such sense as to change 
His relation to them. Hence we say, for want of 
better terms, that God became "offended," or 



SALVATION. 255 

"angry" or "alienated;" and that to the end of 
man's salvation God must be "appeased" and 
"reconciled." Now, I am not acquainted with 
any words that could safely be substituted for those 
above; and hence, although not expressing the 
precise facts in the case, they should be allowed to 
stand in theological literature. 

I have observed that after the transgression 
God's relation or position was changed toward the 
offenders. The penalty of death was laid upon 
His own dear creatures, made in his likeness and 
image. This "death," bear in mind, was not only 
spiritual, but also necessarily eternal. God's word 
is gone out of His mouth pronouncing this sad 
truth. Accordingly, this word stands between 
Him and His children. In this lies His change of 
relation to them. This removes God from man, 
because man first removed himself from God. 
Hence we use the terms mentioned a short time 
ago. 

But God's feelings and purposes for man are not 
changed. Having loved them from the beginning, 
He loves them still. He had no pleasure in the 
death of the sinner, but rather that he should live. 
Now, in order to save man from eternal death, He 
must deliver him from spiritual death; and to ac- 



256 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

complish both, God fixed on the plan of Salvation 
through His Son, as elucidated in Lectures IV 
andV. 

JUSTIFICATION. 

The term Justification is interchangeable with 
"pardon" and "remission of sins." It describes 
a condition opposite to guilt or condemnation. It 
is to stand free from charge or indictment. In a 
court of justice a man can be justified on the 
ground of innocence and on that of compensation. 
When it is clearly proved that the arraigned person 
is not guilty of the matter charged against him, 
the court acquits him, and he stands justified before 
the world. Again, on the other hand, if the per- 
son were found guilty, and sentence were passed 
upon him, if he pays the full penalty of the law 
which he violated, he is justified, also, in the eyes 
of the civil tribunal, on the ground of compensa- 
tion. 

Now in the matter of man's standing before 
God, he must himself confess his guilt. By 
reference to the record at Gen. iii. 8-13, we learn 
of the trial and confession of Adam and Eve. 
The same all men have acknowledged ever since. 
Hence there can be no justification before God, on 
the ground of innocence. On the ground of com- 



SALVATION. 257 

pensation there can be none, for that means 
eternal death, the sentence which the Judge 
passed upon man, which is the penalty of the 
violated law. 

It is most evident, accordingly, that if man can 
be at all justified, it must be by a plan devised by 
the Lawgiver and Judge, and not by any personal 
merit or compensation. Such a plan is not only 
contemplated, but already executed. "God so 
loved the world that He gave His only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not 
perish but have everlasting life." What I believe 
to be the true philosophy of the fact of guilt and the 
scheme of redemption, leads me to so say that the 
matter of which man needs pardon or justification 
is eternal death. It is this, as I said sometime 
ago, that stands between God and the sinner, and 
which constitutes God's change of relation to, or 
alienation from man. I then said that God's word 
had gone forth and must stand, except in the 
event of a plan by which He is justified — that is, 
vindicated — to recall it. Just so soon as the word 
or sentence is nullified, so soon will God be 
changed again to his former attitude and relation 
to man; and just so soon God will draw nigh to 
man, to help him to overcome the subjective result 



258 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

of his disobedience. In the plan of salvation, Jesus 
Christ takes man's place, and in his stead suffers 
an adequate amount to justify God in recalling the 
sentence of death. The blood of the Lamb is 
sufficient to vindicate God's veracity, justice and 
holiness, and to show forth at the same time the 
greatness of His love and tender mercy. 

I am now ready to announce a principle, for 
which nearly all that I have remarked in this 
address has been preparatory. It is this: The 
work and merits of the God-man, the Saviour, 
being placed to man's credit, God justifies all man- 
kind, everywhere, once for all: 

Please observe that this pardon is a free and full 
preliminary forensic act, which restores man to 
the same legal relation to God that he enjoyed be- 
fore the Fall. It simply negatives the objective 
consequence of the transgression, but not the sub- 
jective. It is in the realm of the legal, and not of 
the moral, relation of man to God. But it in- 
volves the fact that God will now undertake to 
change man's moral relation to Him, also. In 
fact, as you see, the legal aspect is precedent to the 
moral, and altogether in the interest of the latter. 

Hence, in view of this universal pardon and 
justification, God bestows the Holy Spirit upon 
absolutely every soul which comes into existence. 



SALVATION. 259 

God makes a sincere and earnest effort to deliver 
every man from the fact of eternal and, therefore, 
spiritual death; and although this is effected in 
only comparatively few cases, the blame attaches 
to man and not to God. 

These statements I make with a full knowledge 
of the fact that they will be resisted by some who 
hear them ; but such things cannot deter me from 
averring what I am fully persuaded is in accord 
with the spirit of the Bible and "a sound mind." 

There is, however, another matter to claim our 
attention at this juncture. It is the subject of 
Justification by Faith. 

How can a sinner be just before God? Not by 
works of righteousness which he can do, but by 
faith in Jesus Christ. In the universal justification 
discussed above, voluntary action is not consid- 
ered. In spite of all the influence of God to the 
contrary, man has it in his power, as a matter of 
course, to voluntarily violate the laws of his Maker. 
In point of fact, this is exactly what most men do. 

The Faith, accordingly, which is involved in a 
sinner's pardon, must not be regarded in the nature 
of an instrument, or even condition, to such par- 
don; but the rather as the faculty or eye by which 
that pardon is apprehended. The only agent en- 



2,60 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

tering into the obtainment of the person's justifica- 
tion is Jesus Christ; but faith sees and appropriates 
that justification. Faith must, in view of the 
foregoing, have credit as a seeing and appropriating 
eye and hand; and it is clearly evident that with- 
out this a man cannot enjoy the peace of forgive- 
ness, nor can his life and conduct be such as is 
characteristic of the justified soul; for he will not 
co-operate with God in his spiritual restoration 
like one who realizes his justification. In my view 
every demand of Scripture touching justification by 
faith is fully met in the foregoing proposition, and 
here I discontinue this subject. 

REGENERATION. 

This, surely, is a most vital subject. It is of un- 
dying interest, and claims our faithful attention in 
its treatment. " Verily I say unto you, ye must be 
born again." 

Theologians state the nature and character of 
this doctrine in such terms as these: "It is the in- 
working or exciting of faith by the Holy Ghost 
through the means of grace. " u It is the deposit- 
ing of a principle or germ of righteousness. " " It is 
the conferring, by the Spirit, of a new heart, feel- 
ings and affections." Such definitions, in the na- 



SALVATION. 26l 

ture of the case, cannot be very wide of the mark. 
Indeed, I believe them to be harmless, but the 
trouble is that they afford no great amount of 
information for those who hunger and thirst after 
knowledge. 

A very fascinating and plausible scientific expla- 
nation of this doctrine is ventured by Prof. Drum- 
mond, in his very suggestive volume entitled: 
''Natural Law in the Spiritual World." The 
position of the book is that the laws in the 
physical world are identical with those which pre- 
vail in the spiritual world. In the chapter relating 
to the subject now in hand, his argument is about 
as follows: In the physical world there are three 
distinct kingdoms, the mineral, the vegetable, and 
the animal. Now, neither of the lower kingdoms 
can pass to the next higher. There is a great gulf 
fixed between each of these realms, and it is never 
in the power of the lower to lift itself to any place 
above itself. It is competent, however, for the 
organic to reach down to the inorganic, and im- 
parting to it organic life, bring it up into the or- 
ganic kingdom. So, also, does the animal king- 
dom reach down to the vegetable to lift it up to a 
place with itself. We notice here that the higher 
is always the active and all-sufficient agent, and 



262 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

the lower is entirely passive. The argument is 
constructed on the accepted fact that life comes 
from life and is never spontaneous. This I wholly 
accept, so far. This Prof. Drummond now pro- 
ceeds to apply to the matter of the new birth. 
Upon his theory of the identity of law in the nat- 
ural and spiritual worlds, he has easy work to show 
that man is dead in reference to spiritual life, as the 
inorganic is dead to organic, and organic to animal 
life. Accordingly, the spiritual world must reach 
down to man, and, endowing him with spiritual 
life, raise him into relation with itself. He affirms 
that the life in this case is Christ. The whole 
argument is, to say the least, very captivating. 
The present speaker cannot, however, give his ad- 
hesion to it, for the reason following: I do not 
agree (if I may venture to disagree with such a 
profound scholar) to the Professor's position rela- 
tive to the identity of "laws" in the two spheres 
indicated. The point of disagreement lies in this: 
The Professor seems to believe, and I do not, that 
man, in his sphere, is dead, in the same sense that 
the various kingdoms in the natural world are in 
theirs. This reduces man to the level of a natural 
mechanism. Of course, there is a sense in which 
such a position may be defended; but it is a sense 



SALVATION. 263 

which requires that man be contemplated from the 
lowest point of view. In the lecture — "The Cre- 
ation of Man" — it was shown that man is a great 
deal more than a lump of flesh; that he is also 
spirit; that, consequently, he partakes of the very 
nature of God. The Fall, most assuredly, marred 
his spiritual visage, but that does not involve the 
destruction of his spiritual nature. This he still 
retains, for that is the realm of the soul. Hence, 
Prof. Drummond's theory that man is dead, in the 
same sense as nature is dead, and that he must be 
endowed with a germ of life, so to speak, in order 
that he may become a spiritual being, and all in 
spite of man's passivity and natural deadness, I 
for one do not believe. This I believe to be con- 
trary to right interpretation of Scripture, and to 
a true psychology, and to personal experience; for 
all these, with one voice, declare that a man has 
some share in his "birth from above." After 
raising this dissentient note, I feel to say that the 
argument of Dr. Drummond in question is most 
beautiful and potent, as showing the analogy be- 
tween God's working in nature and in grace. As 
the mineral never can come up into the vegetable, 
and the vegetable into the animal, except as the 
higher forces reach down and bring them up, so it 



264 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

is precisely true that man cannot attain to the new 
birth, except as God supplies needed grace. In 
this lies the analogy. But man can, and the afore- 
said kingdoms cannot, co-operate with the grace 
that affects him. Herein breaks down the alleged 
identity. 

In this connection I wish to say that what I 
have so far said applies mainly to those who are 
capable of voluntary action — that is, to adults 
rather than to children. Of this I shall speak 
more fully presently. 

It now remains for me to advance what I regard 
as the philosophy of the doctrine of Regeneration. 
This will not occupy much time. If the Fall en- 
tailed death, then I hold that regeneration restores 
life. In the second lecture, — "The Fall" — I ven- 
tured to advance what I hold concerning spiritual 
death. It is this: The "spirit" in man was 
appointed to rule over the whole man, and the 
"flesh" was destined to be subject to, and servant 
of, the "spirit." Spiritual death consists in the 
reversal of this order, and so the "flesh" is now on 
the throne. It follows that all the powers and fac- 
ulties of the soul have become blunted and weak- 
ened, and therefore disabled to fulfill their high 
and holy functions. This involves the further fact 



SALVATION. 265 

of man's alienation from his Maker (God), and his 
enmity to the will of God. (See last division ot 
lecture II.) 

From the foregoing it is easy to see that regen- 
eration is the restoration of man. Right here I 
take the opportunity to say that I refuse to believe 
that the new birth implies the conferment on man 
of a principle or germ of life, precisely as this is 
the case in the natural world. I believe that 
God's working in regeneration is to rehabilitate 
the "spirit" of man, and that not contrary, but 
according, to the laws of the mind. The process 
must be after this fashion: The Intellect must be 
enlightened, the Rational Susceptibility must be 
excited, and the Will must be quickened. This 
done, all is done — in the way of regeneration. The 
"spirit" has now assumed its proper place, and 
functions, and prerogative, and the man is now 
ready to "keep the body under," henceforth. 

The agents by which regeneration is effected are 
the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures; and in the case 
of those who do not have access to the Scriptures, 
tradition and the light of nature. Truth is requi- 
site to bring about all that was mentioned touch- 
ing the Intellect, Emotions and Will; but this 
truth, of course, must be of a character adapted to 
18 



266 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

the nature of the work it is to accomplish, and it 
must be energized and applied by the Holy Ghost. 
Allow me to illustrate my meaning of the foregoing 
discussion : Suppose a wicked man on a certain 
Sunday morning, contrary to his habit, attends 
divine worship. He takes a pew in the rear of 
the church, and, as a matter of course, is listless 
and uninterested. The minister announces his 
text, and the sermon is delivered. The man in 
the pew was struck when the text was announced, 
and during the progress of the sermon the follow- 
ing has taken place in swift succession: The first 
arrest of attention was succeeded by a breaking in 
of light, or knowledge, in respect of self and of 
God, such as he never had before. This knowledge 
is followed by a quickening of emotions running 
exactly in the same direction as his knowledge, 
and this knowledge and these feelings, according 
to mental laws, influence the Will. An alterna- 
tive is presented to the Will, in form something 
like this: "I k?ww ) I feel my relation and duty to 
God, and His just claims upon me. Shall I for- 
swear my past life and enter upon a life of purity 
and obedience, or no?" So far the Holy Spirit 
and the Word have done the work, except that the 
man has voluntarily opened himself to their in- 



SALVATION. 267 

fluences. But at this point the man must co- 
operate with the objective forces, if he desires to be 
born from above. I assume that he says, "I 
yield.'/ This is the supreme moment of his life, 
for he is now restored to "life." He is a "new 
creature in Christ Jesus; old things have passed 
away, behold all things have become new."' In 
this choice of the "better part," there is a radical 
change of the spiritual disposition, and that is Re- 
generation. 

I desire to say here that all this which I assume 
to take place in the space of a preaching service of 
say one hour, may as easily transpire in five min- 
utes; and on the other hand, it may occupy days, 
and even years. The precise time of regeneration, 
proper, is at the yielding of the will, which neces- 
sarily can be but a moment, but the steps leading 
thereto occupy a shorter or longer time. 

I have to say yet that it is at this moment that, 
life coming into the dead, the "new creature" in 
Christ enters into loyal and obedient relation with 
his God and Saviour. God is not only reconciled 
to him, but he is also reconciled to God, which 
gives him the spirit of adoption, and he is enabled 
to say, "Abba Father," and the love of God is shed 
abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost which was 
given unto him. 



268 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

Now before I leave this subject, I am anxious to 
say something more in regard to the relation of this 
doctrine to children. 

I repeat here what I intimated once before, to 
wit, that my remarks thus far have special refer- 
ence to such as are capable of voluntary action. 
In the address on baptism I observed that there is 
a radical difference between the "death" of child- 
ren and that of wicked adults. The "death" of 
the latter is deepened and intensified by voluntary 
transgression. His moral renovation I described 
above. In the case of infants there is nothing to 
hinder us in believing that God may, by His Spirit,* 
in baptism, so affect them in theway of energizing 
their spiritual nature that in popular language it 
may be called regeneration, although technically it 
is not such. I do not think that regeneration, in 
the truest sense, takes place till the very first vol- 
untary yielding of the child to Christ. That may 
be at a very early period of life. I myself do not 
take umbrage at the phrase, "Baptismal Regen- 
eration," although I confess to a mental reserva- 
tion touching its import. 

SANCTIFICATION. 

Although in Regeneration man is restored to 
spiritual life, two results of the Fall remain. One 



SALVATION. 269 

is physical, and has reference to the maladies and 
death of the body ; the other is moral, and has 
reference to moral character and action. 

The question is not, could God also have over- 
come these evils ? but the rather, why did God not 
overcome and banish them? The first question 
carries with it its own answer. The second ques- 
tion may, or may not, be answerable. I venture, 
however, this answer: God, in His wisdom, saw fit 
to allow these strong evidences of the Fall to re- 
main, as showing all men the wrecking power of 
sin, that so, having these things before their eyes, 
they may the more implicitly rely on the power of 
God to keep them from more awful and lasting 
consequences, even eternal perdition. 

It is in place to say here that even these evils are 
devoid of terror to the Christian. The strength of 
the physical evil is broken by the plan of Redemp- 
tion, and the power of the moral evil is exhausted 
by the divine work of Sanctification. The moral 
evil in question is a continued trend and bias to 
wrong, after regeneration. At another place I ob- 
served that man's spiritual nature, once dethroned, 
will be likely to continue for a long time after its re- 
enthronement to be feeble and void of proper self- 
assertion. The inferior nature, once occupying 



270 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

the ruling place in man, will likely long clamor, 
after its impeachment, to reoccupy its former 
place. Thus there is, as St. Paul declares, a con- 
stant warfare between these two. When a man 
with his mind will serve the Lord, there is a law 
in his members which wars against the law of his 
mind. On this account all the regenerate confess 
the fact of many slips and foibles, and even out- 
right sins. 

From these things the Christian is delivered 
more and more by the Holy Ghost and the means 
of grace. By these a twofold work is accomplished. 
There is on the one hand the subduing of the 
"flesh," and on the other hand the uplifting and 
strengthening of the "spirit." Thus we are ex- 
horted to put off the old man and to put on the 
new man, Christ Jesus; also to grow in grace and 
in the knowledgeof the Lord. 

The open secret of the process of sanctiflcation 
lies in the subject's entire yielding of himself to 
the agents effecting it. Over-concern about this 
work in the heart on the part of any one, even to 
the extent of tearing the hair and rending of gar- 
ments, will not avail; but a hearty co-operation 
with the Holy Spirit in the way of holding one's 
self under His cleansing and invigorating influence 



SALVATION. 2/1 

is all that is required. For as God has begun a 
good work within man, so will He also finish it. 
It is proper that one should daily confess and de- 
plore his spiritual weakness, and lay aside every 
weight and the sin which doth so easily beset him ; 
but above all he must look to Jesus Christ, the 
author and finisher of his faith, who is our "wis- 
dom, righteousness, sanctification and redemp- 
tion." 



LECTURE XII 



Glorification, 

Matt. xxv. 34. 



Matt. xxv. 34. Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the 
kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 



LECTURE XII. • 

1 Eleven subjects have been discussed. We now 
enter together upon the twelfth and last. As our 
Saviour at, Cana, kept the good wine till the last, 
so also is it with the subject now in hand. It is 
the best, and follows all the others. 

I believe that man was originally intended for a 
higher and nobler place and state than Eden and 
Edenic life. Adam and Eve might have said: "It 
doth not yet appear what we shall be," but with 
the feeling of assurance that in some way and at 
some time there would be a spiritualizing of the 
flesh and an uplifting of their being into a still 
more exalted realm of existence. What was con- 
templated for man in the beginning is, notwith- 
standing his lapse into sin, made possible in Re- 
demption. Man is again placed in a position that 
he may be glorified at the right hand of the 
Majesty on high. In the subjects and doctrines 
previously treated, it has been shown how this can 
be the case. 

The transition from this world to the next is 
(275) 



276 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

characterized by an event with which we are all 
familiar. It is death, or rather, " falling asleep. " 
In the Fall, the seed of bodily death was depos- 
ited in man's physical nature. In Redemption, 
that seed, in the wisdom of God, and for our disci- 
pline, was not dislodged. Through the Fall, death 
had a terrible sting. Through Redemption, the 
sting of death is extracted, so that the giving up 
the ghost is no longer death, but sleep. "Oh 
death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy 
victory!'' "Death is swallowed up in victory." 

DEATH. 

"Bodily death," says Dr. J. H. Wythe, "occurs 
when the cause of life is removed. Life is not 
synonymous with spirit, but is peculiar spiritual 
influence on matter, the result of the union of cre- 
ated spirits and elemental matter. When the spir- 
itual essence ceases to act upon the matter of the 
organism we say the body is dead, and the disinte- 
gration and chemical decomposition succeed." 

Prof. Draper writes: "The system of animal life 
dies before that of the organic. Of the former the 
sensory functions fail first, voluntary motion next, 
and the power of muscular contraction, under great 
stimulus, still feebly continues. The blood, in 



GLORIFICATION. 277 

gradual death, first ceases to reach, the extremities, 
its pulsation becoming less and less energetic, so 
that, failing to gain the periphery, it passes but a 
little way from the heart; the feet and hands becom- 
ing cold as the circulating fluid leaves them, the 
decline of temperature gradually invading the inte- 
rior. Some of the organic functions often continue 
for a time, particularly the secretion and the devel- 
opment of heat." 

u With the exception of falling asleep, nothing is 
so similar to the passing away in death as the sink- 
ing of a person into a swoon; yet he who faints 
experiences little or no suffering before uncon- 
sciousness ensues. Perhaps, if artificial stimulants 
were not applied to restore to his nervous system 
the power of serving the soul, he would pass from 
the swoon into death without any further sensa- 
tion. Such, also, is the condition of all those who, 
reduced to unconsciousness by excessive cold, are 
eventually restored to life. Their limbs are be- 
numbed, their blood flows slower and slower, and 
finally the body stiffens as in death. The only 
sensation they experience is unconquerable drowsi- 
ness and desire to lie down and rest; and though 
they may be perfectly conscious that sleep may end 
in death, they nevertheless brave it that they may 



278 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

enjoy the delight of sleep. It is thus established 
that at the moment of dissolution it has in it 
nothing that is terrible, that very few persons are 
clearly conscious of it, and that it is the imagina- 
tion of survivors that invests it with horrors." — 
Zschokke. 

"No case is remembered where persons have 
returned to life after they were believed to have 
been dead, that the testimony has not been given 
to the effect that in the very act of departure the 
last remembered sensations were not merely pleas- 
urable, but exquisite." A titled lady exclaimed, 
"Why did you bring me back to earth?" A 
drowned man passed away with strains of the most 
delightful music striking upon his ears. The man 
cut down from the gallows had a vision of entering 
Paradise, surrounded with all its glories. Now a 
lady struck dead by lightning, as was supposed, 
says, "I feel quite sure that death by lightning 
must be absolutely painless, for I had a feeling of 
gently dying, dying away into darkness." Surely 
we do ourselves great wrong, and the Merciful One 
who made death, also, to cherish the idea that it is 
dreadful, for a correct and substantiated physi- 
ology has demonstrated that in the hour and article 
of death from disease, for several minutes, and 



GLORIFICATION. 279 

sometimes for hours before departure, the feeling 
of pain is an absolute impossibility: there may be 
an appearance of it, but it is a manifest, unfelt 
muscular disturbance."—/^ W. Hall, M. D. 

"The darkness of death is like the evening 
twilight, it makes all objects more lovely to the 
dying. ' ' — Richter. 

I have made these quotations from others rather 
than to cite at length anything that has come 
under my personal knowledge. However, by way 
of substantiating what has been quoted above, I 
cannot forbear to merely mention in this place the 
happy experience of a near relative. Tortured 
with extreme pain for a fortnight, a brief period 
before death there was total cessation of it. Ec- 
static delight filled his whole being, and his de- 
parture was unspeakably more enjoyed than the •* 
passage from wakefulness to sleep, after a long 
day of exhausting labor. • 

In view of all that has been said, I am fully per- 
suaded that the pain and terror of death lies in the 
knowledge of the fact that after death is the Judg- 
ment. Accordingly, all who "die in the Iyord," 
to them there is no "fear in death," nor any 
physical pain. "For so He giveth His beloved 
sleep. ' ' 



28o RAYS OF LIGHT. 

THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

This is a matter touching which no man may 
dogmatize. God has not seen fit to give us a clear 
and unmistakable revelation concerning the state 
and place between death and the resurrection, and 
hence the few words that I have to offer on this 
subject are not expected to terminate all future 
discussion. 

My study of the Scriptures leads me to the con- 
clusion that there is an intermediate place and 
state. This conclusion is based on the meaning 
and use of the terms Sheol in the Old, and Hades 
in the New, Testament. These terms I believe to 
be synonymous, and expressing the fact of a place 
in the other world, distinct from Heaven and Hell. 
I freely admit that there are many who do not read 
the same meaning from these words that I do, but 
I feel personally assured of the soundness of this 
interpretation, which, if. the scope of this lecture 
permitted, I might fortify by a number of " infal- 
lible proofs ' ' drawn directly from Holy Writ. 

I give it as my opinion that Hades is divided 
into two parts, one of which is the place of abode 
of the righteous and the other the prison of the 
wicked, up to the day of judgment. 

On that great day the righteous, in union of 



GLORIFICATION. 28 1 

soul and body, will enter upon the full and ineffa- 
ble fruition of Heaven; as the wicked, in union of 
soul and body, will be cast into Hell. 

I may say here that in addition to the teaching of 
the inspired word, two independent arguments sup- 
port the above view. First, an argument derived 
from the character of the joys of Heaven and the 
suffering of Hell. Apart from the consideration of 
what are called the positive rewards and punish- 
ments in Heaven and Hell, respectively, a great 
part, perhaps the major part, of both the former 
and the latter, are natural — that is to say, they are 
naturally and inevitably consequential of the moral 
character of the inhabitants of the respective places 
mentioned. In other words, the conscience is a 
very great factor in the bliss of Heaven and the 
woes of Hell. But conscience necessarily depends 
on knowledge for the full assertion of itself, either 
in the direction of peace and joy, or the opposite. 
Now this knowledge is not only of present moral 
character, but also includes, pre-eminently, the 
moral status and personal influence of each during 
his entire earthly life. This is not all. Inas- 
much as moral character and voluntary actions in 
one's life-time start a train of influences which 
roll on and on while time lasts, it is obvious that 
19 



282 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

no man can know the complete results of his 
earthly career, for good or for evil, until everything 
will be revealed in the records of the judgment-day. 
Then, and then only, can a man know all the re- 
sults of all the deeds done in the body. Then, 
and then only, will the conscience determine, sub- 
jectively, the peace and joy of Heaven ; the woe 
and terror of Hell. Hence, in the light of the 
above, the judgment-day is a necessity, and equally 
so is the Intermediate State. 

Against this it may be said: "When the soul is 
freed from the body, at death, it may at once see 
the whole outcome of the influences started in this 
life; it may be able to anticipate the future, so that 
the past and the future are alike known." To 
this I have to say, No, I think not. We have 
every reason to believe that the mental activities 
and laws of thought are substantially the same in 
the spirit world as in this. At least it is quite 
certain that no new faculties are superadded to 
those which man now possesses. Accordingly, the 
future cannot be anticipated or known there any 
more than here, for this would imply, in my view, 
a species of omniscience ; and this of course must 
be ruled out of the argument. 

Another may say : ' K But does not God know all 



GLORIFICATION. 283 

things, both past and future? and will He not reveal 
the future to every one immediately after death?" 
To this I have to answer as I did above: No, I 
think not. Such revelation implies a miracle, 
which I believe to be an act confined entirely to 
this world. I say this because I cannot conceive 
that miracles can serve any good purpose in the 
Unseen World. I hold, therefore, that God will 
not likely interfere in the manner intimated by the 
supposed questioner, which leaves the original ar- 
gument intact and secure, viz., the fact of an 
Intermediate State. 

Another reason favoring an Intermediate State 
between death and the resurrection is found in the 
fact of the separation of soul and body during the 
interval. My view of the nature and faculties of 
the soul fits it fully for independent existence, if 
that were God's will. But that is not His will, for 
•He reveals to us His purpose to re-unite soul and 
body at the end of the world. It is not a question 
of the soul's capability of independent existence, 
but rather as to a beautiful propriety, that the re- 
union of soul and body is ordained of God. Note 
this: Every good deed on the one hand, as every 
evil deed on the other hand, is accomplished and 
committed by the united activity of soul and body, 



284 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

the soul being the principal and the body the 
agent. Surely, therefore, I can see poetic pro- 
priety in the resurrection and re-union of the body 
with the soul, in order to share, with the latter, 
the retributions of eternity. 

From this it seems obvious, that the soul does 
not immediately after death enter upon the last 
stage of existence, but only on an intermediate or 
middle stage, as in this life on the first, and after 
the Resurrection and Judgment on the last and the 
best. 

I may further say that I hold to the following 
tenets: 

1. The wicked in the Intermediate State experi- 
ence substantially the same pain and anguish as 
they will in Hell — only less in degree. 

2. The righteous experience substantially the 
peace and joy and rest that they will in Heaven — 
only less in degree. 

3. The righteous develops greatly in every capa- 
city of their nature during this interval. 

4. All infants and children are here developed 
and trained for citizenship in heaven. 

5. All the heathen who live and die without a 
knowledge of Christ and the doctrines of salvation, 
but who are disposed to live up to the light which 



GLORIFICATION. 285 

they enjoy, and who would accept Christ in this 
life if they had opportunity, are in the Intermediate 
State brought into contact with Christ, and are 
made meet for the enjoyment and service of heaven. 
6. All who were incorrigible in this life, whether 
enlightened or unenlightened, have in the Inter- 
mediate State no "second probation." 

HEAVEN. 

The second advent of Christ, the Judgment and 
the end of the world, are three thrilling and awful 
events. At that day a voice may be heard saying: 
"Time was, time is, but time shall be no more." 
Time is swallowed up in eternity: Eternal Hell, 
and Eternal Heaven. "Depart from me, ye 
cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil 
and his angels. " " Come, ye blessed of my Father, 
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the 
foundation of the world." 

The two great questions that obtrude themselves 
constantly in regard to heaven are, "Do we know 
each other there?" and, "What is the nature and 
character of the place?" On these two questions 
allow me to voice my sentiments fully and most 
eloquently by means of a "string of pearls," 
selected here and there. This done, my aim and 



286 RAYS OF UGHT. 

purpose in these addresses will be compassed, and 
I will bid adieu, with the fond hope that some good, 
at least, will be realized out of my humble effort. 

RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

"Paul before the throne is and inevitably must 
be the identical Paul who preached at Athens and 
was martyred at Rome. When he longed to ' de- 
part and be with Christ ' he expected not to be 
somebody else, but the same individual. Moses 
died fifteen centuries before the advent of Jesus 
Christ. Yet there was a personality still existing-, 
who appeared at the time of Christ's transfigura- 
tion on the mount, and who was addressed by him 
as Moses. The prophet Elijah, who had died seven 
hundred years before was there also. When the great 
Apostle speaks of his Thessalonian converts as his 
( glory and joy in the presence of the Lord Jesus 
Christ,' he assuredly expected to meet the same 
persons in heaven that he labored with in Thessa- 
lonica. If they were not the same people, and if 
he could not meet them there, how could they be to 
him a 'crown' or a 'joy.' This point is clearly in 
accordance with common sense. Whatever change 
may be produced by death, personal identity will 
not be altered by one jot or tittle. The sinner who 



GLORIFICATION. 287 

sins here will be the same sinner who will be pun- 
ished in a world of woe. The believer who will 
be welcomed by the glad salute, ' Come thou 
blessed of my Father,' will be the same person 
who on earth had done the Father's bidding. 
Without this preservation of perfect identity, the 
whole idea of a future retribution of rewards and 
punishments would be an absurd impossibility. 

"If identity is preserved in eternity, will the fac- 
ulty of memory also survive the grave? Undoubt- 
edly it will. The obliteration of memory would 
amount to a partial destruction of the individual. 
It would remove some of Heaven's richest enjoy- 
ments. If I cannot remember what my Redeemer 
has done and suffered for me, how can I join in the 
ever 'new song' of grateful praise before His 
throne? The obliteration of memory would take 
away the severest and bitterest of sin's just retri- 
bution in Hell. Upon this point the description 
of Lazarus and the selfish rich man 'in torment' 
throws a distinct light, for Abraham said, 'Son, 
remember that thou in thy life-time receivedst thy 
good things.' 

" Put together these two facts (1) personal iden- 
tity is not lost in eternity, (2) memory remains also 
unimpaired. It follows inevitably that we shall 



288 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

know each other in Heaven. When David cried 
out over his dead boy, ' I shall go to him, but he 
shall not return to me,' that bereaved father ex- 
pected to meet again the child whose spirit had 
flown to God. Certainly we shall not be more 
stupid in Heaven than we are on earth. Martin 
Luther, in his ' Table Talk,' makes much of this 
intercourse with father and mother and kindred in 
the heavenly home. Sharp, unpoetic old Dr. Em- 
mons used to say: i I hope to have some talks with 
the Apostle in Heaven.' 

"That infants will be doomed to the everlasting 
weakness and helplessness and ignorance of in- 
fancy seems to my mind impossible. No mother 
would ever want to see her darling babe stunted to 
an unchanged babyhood, even here. It would be- 
come a pitiable monstrosity. Half the charm of 
childhood is its constant growth — its delightful 
openings like the rose-bud, to new thought and 
development. The idea of an undeveloped infancy 
in Heaven would be almost a libel on the Creator ! 
My darling boy will be none the less my own 
child in the 'Father's house,' because he has in- 
creased in stature and knowledge, and in favor 
with God and man. That I shall know him there 
I have no more doubt of than I have of the exist- 



GLORIFICATION. 289 

ence of a heavenly rest. Good Dean Alford struck 
a chord in every Christian heart when he sang : 

" ' Oh ! then what raptured greetings 
On heaven's happy shore ; 
What knitting severed friendships up, 
Where partings are no more ! ' " 

— Theodore L. Cuyler, D."D. 

A great divine says: "When I was a boy I 
thought of heaven as a great shining city, with vast 
walls, and domes, and spires, and with nobody in it 
except white angels, who were strangers to me. 
By and by my little brother died, and I thought of 
a great city, with walls, and domes, and spires, and 
a flock of cold unknown angels, and one little fel- 
low that I was acquainted with. He was the only 
one I knew in it at that time. Then another 
brother died, and there were two that I knew. 
Then my acquaintances began to die, and the flock 
continually grew. But it was not until I had sent 
one of my little children to his Grandparent — God 
— that I began to think I had got a little in myself. 
A second event, a third event, a fourth event, and 
by that time I had so many acquaintances in 
Heaven that I did not see any more walls, and 
domes, and spires. I began to think of the resi- 
dents of the Celestial City. And now there have so 



29O RAYS OF LIGHT. 

many of my acquaintances gone there that it some- 
times seems to me that I know more in Heaven 
than I do on earth." 

"Many in the other galleries we have heard of, 
but these we knew. Oh, how familiar their faces; 
they sat at our tables, and we walked to the house 
of God in company. Have they forgotten us? 
Those fathers and mothers started us on the road 
of life. Are they careless as to what becomes of 
us? And these children, do they look with stolid 
indifference as to whether we lose or win this battle 
for eternity? Nay; I see that child running its 
hand over your brow and saying, ' Father, do not 
fret; mother, do not worry. 7 They remember the 
day they left us. They remember the agony of the 
last farewell. Though years in Heaven, they re- 
member our faces. They remember our sorrows. 
They speak our names. They watch this fight for 
Heaven. Nay; I see them rise up and lean over 
and wave before us their recognition and encour- 
agement. That gallery is not full. They are 
keeping places for us. After we have slain the lion 
they expect the King to call us, saying: 'Come up 
higher. ' Between the hot struggles in the arena 
I wipe the sweat from my brow, and stand on tip- 
toe, reaching up my right hand to clasp theirs in 



GLORIFICATION. 291 

rapturous hand-shaking, while their voices come 
ringing down from the gallery, crying, 'Be thou 
faithful unto death, you shall have a crown.' " — 
Dr. Talmage. 

NATURE OR CHARACTER OE HEAVEN. 
Heaven a Place. 
"We are accustomed to say that space and time 
are only conditions of our finite and composite na- 
tures, and that to unfettered spirits there would be 
recognition of neither space nor time. Whether 
this be true or not, no one can tell. It is a trans- 
cendentalism that it is folly to talk about. Time 
and space are absolute necessities, to our thinking. 
Every conception of our mind is formed on them 
as a foundation; and we can have no idea of God 
Himself, except as in time and space. Hence we 
must (whether we will or not) take the word 
'place' in the passage, 'I go to prepare a place 
for you,' in a literal sense. Even if it be not lit- 
erally a place, we think of it as a place, for we can- 
not think of it in any other way. And, moreover, 
from the words being used, when our Saviour 
might have said simply, 'I go to prepare for you,' 
we may infer that it is actually a place that is 
meant here. Farther than that perhaps would be 



292 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

only fancy, and in that region of fancy we cannot 
find it profitable to wander. But that on which we 
may dwell with profit is, first, that the place is pre- 
pared by our Lord; and secondly, that it is pre- 
pared for us. What a place must that be which 
Christ prepares, which His almighty power and 
infinite love combined make ready for our abode! 
It must be a place where every purified desire of 
the heart must have perpetual satisfaction, and 
where Christ's own happiness shall be shared by 
those for whom He died. If these are the charac- 
teristics of that future home, it makes very little 
difference what the spiritual forms of occupation 
or the objective elements upheld by the soul in 
that better world may be. The inner soul longs 
for happiness — it is only the outward and change- 
able sense that would dictate its form. That it is 
pure and holy, and that it has Christ our Lord and 
Saviour in it — this is enough. We know the de- 
licious contents of the vessel, if we do not know 
the shape and color of the vessel containing it. 
To 'depart' is 'to be with Christ.'" — Howard 
Crosby, D. D., LL.D. 

The Joys of Heaven. 
u Death may separate the believer from some 



GLORIFICATION. 293 

object that he loves, but it draws him nearer to the 
object that he mainly loves. It is, indeed, delight- 
ful for the believer to think that the friend who first 
visited him in his lost estate, and who cherished 
him all the way through the wilderness, is the very 
friend he is to meet in the Mansion above. Death 
does no violence to such a man; It produces no 
break in his feelings or affections. Led to love the 
Lamb of God when on earth, trained by the Spirit 
of God, and by all the dispensations of God, to love 
Him more and more, he finds when he has entered 
the dark valley and the shadows of death that the 
first object that meets his eye, and the most con- 
spicuous object, is a Lamb as it has been slain. 

"We cannot speak of that which is unspeakable, 
or delineate that which is indescribable, and there- 
fore we cannot delineate that joy unspeakable and 
full of glory which the believer will enjoy through- 
out all eternity. The word of God does not furnish 
us with any particular account of the holy exer- 
cises and joys of heaven. Two very excellent rea- 
sons can be given for this: One is, that a vivid 
description of the joys of heaven as fascinating the 
fancy might rather draw away the mind from the 
practical duties of life; and the other is that the 
joys of heaven are such that man in his present 



294 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

state cannot so much as conceive them. Enough 
is revealed, however, that the L,amb is slain to be 
the grand source of the joys of the saints. There 
will be joys springing from the holy affections, 
confidence and love, which Christ by His spirit 
has planted in the hearts of His people. The 
grace, flowing and overflowing and increasing, will 
be the source of great and ever-augmented happi- 
ness throughout eternity. Again, there will be 
joys springing from the glorious society of heaven, 
from the company of saints and angels. Brethren 
in Christ, you are now walking on the very road 
on which all men of God have traveled from crea- 
tion downwards, and at its termination you shall 
meet with all those who have come from the east 
and from the west, the north and the south, to sit 
down in the kingdom of God. They are one of 
many kindred, but they all unite with melody of 
voice and heart to sing praises to the Redeemer. 
Ye will be in the Heavenly Jerusalem in company 
with Jesus, the Mediator of the New Covenant, and 
His saints." — Dr. James McCosh. 

What Heaven Involves. 

"The state of eternal glory involves three things: 
i. Absence of all sufferring, pain, sin and evil. 



GLORIFICATION. 295 

2. The presence of all good, both of the purest and 
most exalted kind. 3. The complete satisfaction 
of all the desires of the soul, at all times through 
eternity, without the possibility of decrease on the 
one hand, or of satiety on the other, or of any term- 
ination of the existence of the receiver or the 
received. This is ineffably great and glorious, but 
the apostle exceeds all this by saying, 'An heir of 
God.' It is therefore not Heaven merely, it is not 
the place where no ill can enter, and where pure 
and spiritual good is eternally present; it is not 
merely a state of endless blessedness in the regions 
of glory; it is God Himself, God in His plenitude 
of glories, God who by the eternal communication 
of His glories, meets every wish and satisfies every 
desire of a deathless and imperishable spirit, which 
He has created for Himself, and of which Himself 
is the only portion. To a soul composed of infinite 
desires, what would the place or state called 
'Heaven' be, if God were not there? God, then 
is the portion of the soul, and the only portion 
with which its infinite powers can be satisfied. 
How wonderful is his lot ! A child of corruption, 
lately a slave of sin and heir of perdition, tossed 
about with every storm of life; in afflictions many 
and privations oft; having perhaps scarcely where 



296 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

to lay his head; and at last prostrated by death 
and mingled with the dust of the earth: but now, 
how changed ! The soul is renewed in glory, the 
body fashioned after the glorious human nature of 
Jesus Christ, and both joined together in an in- 
destructible bond, clearer than the moon, brighter 
than the sun, and more resplendent than all the 
heavenly spheres, and having overcome through 
the grace of Christ, is set down with Jesus on his 
throne to reign forever and ever." — Dr. Adam 
Clarke. 

The Vision of Deity. 
u In many inspired descriptions of heaven, the 
Shekinah, or the visible presence of God, is made 
prominent. This might be expected if the anti- 
type corresponds with the type; and if Heaven be 
an advance stage of the manifestations of the Deity 
to man, we should look for a richer display of the 
divine glory and a more perfect consciousness of 
the divine presence. Hence the city selected to 
prefigure the eternal residence was not the classic 
Athens nor imperial Rome, though adorned with 
statuary, studded with temples, rich in historic 
fame. No, but the capital of Judea, because there 
Jehovah's presence was wont to be displayed to 
His worshippers. Yet this is the New Jerusalem, 



GLORIFICATION. 297 

because of its purity and the richer glory which fills 
it as the shrine of the divine Majesty. 'And I saw 
no temple therein,' says the enraptured John, as 
he gazes on its unearthly radiance ; ' I saw no 
temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the 
Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no 
need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it; 
for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb 
is the light thereof. ' The allusion here cannot be 
misunderstood. In the Holy of Holies of the 
earthly Jerusalem there was neither natural nor 
artificial light; no golden lamp shone within its 
walls, and not a ray of the sun could enter there, 
for that sacred place was illumined by the glory of 
the Shekinah, which occasionally filled the temple 
with supernatural brightness, and shone forth to 
the view of the joyful crowd of worshippers with- 
out. So in the heavenly city the sun and moon 
shed not their rays, nor is there need for the re- 
flection or emission of light from any natural 
luminary, because the actual personal presence of 
Jehovah fills it with glory. Even the temple itself 
is dispensed with in the Celestial City, because the 
vision of God is there unveiled, and access to Him 
is without the intervention of symbolic rites. The 
earthly temple, while forming a shrine for the 



298 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

Shekinah, was a mode of concealment from the 
view of the people. The glory was curtained of! 
and shut in, so that the radiant symbol was en- 
throned in solitary majesty in the most holy place. 
But in the New Jerusalem no temple is seen, for no 
external shade is required ; and in the brightness 
of a better dispensation concealment and restriction 
have disappeared. In leaving earth the spirits of 
the just leave the outer court and enter within the 
veil, into the Holy of Holies — into Heaven itself, 
the presence of the divine Majesty — and live con- 
tinually within its brightness. No walls there 
form a barrier between God and His people, not 
even the temple walls, not even the veil of the 
temple, for the saints dwell in His immediate pres- 
ence. No cloud shrouds His radiant majesty from 
their gaze, but they all with open face behold His 
glory, and there is neither darkness nor distance 
between them and God. 

"Nor are the representations of the saints, as 
dwelling in the divine presence, to be denuded 
of their import by the cold criticism that would re- 
solve them into mere figures of speech. The type 
and symbol belong to earth, the divine reality be- 
longs to heaven. In speaking of believers dwelling 
in the divine presence, the Scriptures mean an 



GLORIFICATION. 299 

actual dwelling and an actual presence. In speak- 
ing of the saints seeing God, they mean an actual 
view of the Deity. The benediction promise of the 
Saviour is, * Blessed are the pure in heart, for they 
shall see God;' the prayer of the Saviour is, 'That 
they may behold my glory which thou hast given 
me;' and the promise that immediately follows the 
description of the blessed in the New Jerusalem is, 
4 And they shall see His face.' These refer to a 
true and proper vision of the Deity. As certainly 
as the Jews of old saw the symbol of God's pres- 
ence when it filled the sanctuary; as certainly as 
Moses saw the glory of God from the cleft of the 
rock; as certainly as Moses and Klias saw the Re- 
deemer on the Mount of Transfiguration; as really 
as the high priest entered the Holy of Holies, and 
saw the radiant cloud between the cherubim over 
the mercy seat, so truly shall the saints enter 
Heaven and see the Deity face to face. They shall 
dwell where He is; they shall see Him as He is. 
For then, 'behold the tabernacle of God is with 
men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall 
be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, 
and be their God. ' 

"Here, then, is the first consummation of the be- 
liever's hopes and aspirations. At last the wilder- 



300 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

ness is left, and the promised paradise is gained; 
the weary pilgrim has arrived at home; the absent 
son and heir has entered his father's house. The 
journey of faith ends in realizing vision and actual 
possession. On earth he loved the Saviour with 
supreme affection, though he saw him not — 'whom 
having not seen yet he loved; in whom, though he 
saw him not, yet believing he rejoiced with joy un- 
speakable and full of glory.' Satisfied with God 
as his portion, he exclaims, 'Whom have I in 
Heaven but Thee ? and there is none in earth that I 
desire beside Thee.' But love longs for the sight 
and presence of its object, and while faith and hope 
anticipate, love stimulates the desire for the happy 
hour of realization and possession, and the bitter- 
est sorrows and the deepest sufferings are patiently 
endured under its expectation. Now is that hour 
come. The happy spirit is with Christ, sees Him, 
at sight of Him eternity opens with ever-during 
bliss. O what a recompense for all our sorrows., 
conflicts and tears, will be found in the first 
moment we have of gazing on the glorified 
Saviour! Well, poor, tempted, tried, despised 
and persecuted believer, be patient a little longer, 
persevere through a few more conflicts and sor- 
rows, and thy Lord shall call thee home, and thou 



GLORIFICATION. 301 

shalt be forever with Him to behold the King in 
His beauty, and the land that is afar off." — Wm. 
Cooke, D. D. 

"O holy dwelling-place of God! 
O glorious city all divine ! 
Thy streets, by feet of seraphs trod, 
Shall one glad day be trod by mine. 

' ' In Thee no temple lifts its dome, 
No sun its radiant beam lets fall ; 
For there, of light the eternal home, 
God and the Lamb illumine all! 

' ' There from exhaustless fountains flow 
The living waters, gushing o'er, 
Which whoso drinks thenceforth shall know 
Earth's ever-craving thirst no more. 

''There fresh and fair on every hand, 
Where one unfading summer lives, 
The trees of life unwithering stand, 
Whose fruit immortal vigor gives. 

' ' All lovelier flowers than Bden bare 

When God pronounced His work complete, 
All matchless forms of beauty, there 
The never- wearied eye shall greet. 

"Within the burnished gates abide 

Of God's redeemed the countless throng, 
Who ever while the ages glide 
Serve in seraphic ardor strong. 



302 RAYS OF LIGHT. 

"To them the Lamb that fills the throne 
In love divine unveils His face ; 
While they, with bliss to earth unknown, 
Adore the beauty and the grace. 

"No wasting sorrow there is found, 
No cheek is wet with burning tears ; 
"Whom those eternal walls surround, 
No foe can reach, no pang, no fears. 

"Land of the blest, on faith's keen eye 
Faint glimpses of thy glory break ; 
Oh, when in earth's last sleep I lie, 
Mid thy full splendors let me wake ! " 

—Ray Palmer, D. D. 



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